As more and more B2B and wholesale businesses and their customers begin transitioning to online ordering, an opportunity arises for customer acquisition when they’re looking for businesses like yours that can accommodate that shift. Here are ways you can leverage your own site to make it easy for new B2B and wholesale customers to find you and make purchases.

1. Use your catalog as SEO content

The days of locking down a B2B Ecommerce site completely are fading. More and more savvy online merchants are leveraging information such as their product catalog, marketing one-pagers and other materials to build an informative online site that can be easily indexed by Google. Meanwhile, the actual purchase and pricing options behind a login screen.

IndiCo Direct lets potential customers browse their catalog, but requires a log-in to view the pricing.

This strikes a good balance between putting out useful information that helps use your existing product catalog as content that drives new traffic, and ultimately, sales.

Zoey’s Access Restrictions features allow a number of permutations of this model. You can hide pricing, add to cart functions and more behind a login screen. You can also opt to have only a portion of your catalog be publicly available.

2. Offer the ability to receive a quote and create a draft order

Many B2B sites don’t want to reveal pricing for fear or tipping too much off to a competitor, but customers want to know more information before committing to a store. Sales Quotes offers that perfect balance by allowing prospective customers the ability to request a quote based on the items they wish to order.

Zoey’s Sales Quotes capability lets merchants set custom product and shipping pricing in a draft order that a customer can then approve and purchase immediately. Even if a customer doesn’t purchase at that time, you now have collected a bit of information about that prospective customer. You can then leverage marketing opportunities to try to draw them back later.

3. Allow both retail and wholesale purchases

Some distributors and manufacturers want to be able to sell direct when the opportunity makes sense, without having to manage a whole other operation to achieve this. Through Customer Groups, Zoey allows for the ability to display public pricing for guest and B2C customers to shop as per normal. Meanwhile, B2B and wholesale customers can log in and see a customized catalog with their own pricing available.

All that has to be done is for assignment of pricing to groups, and as needed access restrictions to show and hide the products available to each group. Products can be managed individually through the admin or in bulk through CSV imports and third-party product management tools.

4. Make customer registration easy

If you have a potential customer who’s interested in buying from you, one way to capture interest and get them onto your lists is to make registration a breeze. With Zoey you have the ability to add additional fields, including allowing for file uploads if you have specific documentation you need to ensure a customer is eligible to purchase from you, whether it be certification, tax documents or other proof.

With Zoey, you can define which fields you include on your customer registration form, ensuring you have everything need to get new customers up and running.

By getting everything you need upfront from registration, you can properly funnel customers. And if you have an approval step for your team in the Ecommerce solution before they get access, modifying registration to include the information you need can reduce or eliminate any unneeded back and forth between you and the customer and get a customer approved to purchase that much faster.

Zoey customer Greene’s Reserve, for instance, can get their buyers up and running with an account, and have their first order placed, within minutes.

5. Equip Your Salespeople With an App

Increasingly, mobile apps are being adopted for salespeople to be able to take orders wherever they are, whether on the go, in the office or with their buyers. One way they can help businesses is by allowing for quick registration and setup of new buyers, so they can get them into the Ecommerce solution not only for salespeople to process orders, but to allow those buyers to place self-service orders in the future.

This combination of self-service and salesperson-driven sales is what is propelling many B2B wholesale businesses to new success, by allowing buyers to take the lead when they feel comfortable, leaving your salespeople to assist those who need it, and onboard and acquire additional buyers.

Choose Zoey for your B2B wholesale needs

If your business primarily revolves around B2B and wholesale customers, it’s important to select a platform that has your needs top of mind. Contact Zoey to take a tour of our capabilities and understand how we can help your business: