The Hard Truth About B2B eCommerce

The Launch Of "The Hard Truth About B2B eCommerce"

June 10, 2020 Isaiah Bollinger Season 1 Episode 1
The Hard Truth About B2B eCommerce
The Launch Of "The Hard Truth About B2B eCommerce"
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode (Episode recorded April 2020) our co-hosts Isaiah Bollinger, CEO of Trellis, and Timothy Peterson, Client Advocate of Trellis, we discuss why we started this podcast and what businesses can do to become more successful with B2B eCommerce. We discuss many of the challenges such as platforms & technology, culture, sales, and more. We discuss current B2B eCommerce trends and who is really doing well in B2B eCommerce. We also discuss whats stopping companies from succeeding in eCommerce. 

Unknown Speaker :

Hey, so welcome to the first episode of the hard truth about b2b e commerce. It's our new podcasts that we just started to try and help businesses sell through e commerce to other businesses, which is what b2b e commerce is all about. So I'm one of your hosts Isaiah Bollinger, CEO of trellis. I'm here with Timothy Timothy Peterson from biz sports. And yeah, we just want to kind of get into it and

Unknown Speaker :

introduce ourselves. So Timothy, Yeah, go ahead.

Unknown Speaker :

It's a pleasure. I am so glad we're launching this together. I've really been looking forward to it. And it's certainly filling up a need out in the community there. I don't really know of any other podcasts of any sort in b2b commerce right now. So glad to be doing this and I am the CMO and the Chief Digital Officer for sports. biz And we're based in New York, but I'm working from home just like everybody else right now. So it's great to kick this off.

Unknown Speaker :

Absolutely. Yeah. It's a good way to get some content and some value out there. Well, we're stuck at home. So yeah, I mean, that's a big reason that I wanted to start this I kind of looked out for podcasts. And you know, there's a ton of e commerce stuff out there. There's some great like Shopify podcasts, great, b2c podcasts, but they're more focused on kind of retail consumer. I did find two b2b podcasts, one of them was discontinued, and one of them was kind of not very consistent. And it just, I don't even think I could find it on iTunes. I found it on their website. So there's some stuff out there, but it wasn't. It wasn't readily available. There wasn't much and it didn't feel like there was really a whole lot of great resources for for b2b companies. And so I think a lot of them are kind of in the dark and they don't necessarily know what to do.

Unknown Speaker :

So it won't be too hard for us to be the best.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, I wanted to you know, choose the Something that was a, you know, achievable. I felt like the regular ecommerce podcast is getting competitive. So I think we'll be able to be, we could definitely be the top b2b podcast. I guess pretty pretty quickly. I think so. Um, yeah, just to complete the intros. I'm the CEO and founder of trellis. We're a digital agency that does e commerce services on platforms like Magento, and Shopify and various other platforms like big commerce, and we work with both b2c and b2b companies. And we've done a lot with b2b and we want to help b2b companies, which is the goal of this podcast. So um, so yeah, let's let's get into it. Um, the first topic that I want to address is just kind of why we started why we why we wanted to start this podcast, which we're kind of already getting into, but maybe they'll take that a little bit further. Tim, what do you you know, Feel the reason I wanted to start this, I guess let me let me start there that I felt like b2b companies have a harder time executing on e commerce than b2c, I think it's more complicated. There's not as clear of a roadmap, I think would be to see, you know, you can kind of get up and running on Shopify pretty easily, you know, set up your products and add to cart, it's more of a simpler purchasing experience, and you can at least get up and running relative I feel like a playbook is is more concrete and more solidified. Whereas with b2b, you know, the playbook. I don't I don't think there is necessarily a perfect playbook. It's not as cut and dry. And I think it's not as clear as what they need to do because they're so unique in a lot of ways.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, I mean, and one of the reasons the core reasons I wanted to do this is, you know, it's, it's, it's really something that I've learned at being in b2b and having been in b2c. I've been in both, and I really do think you're right, that there are a lot more resources and there are bigger communities built around b2c commerce. So people can, you know, share ideas. So there's a bigger ecosystem, let's say, in b2b. I don't think that we're really there yet. It's not it's not quite as mature. I would say that communities are enough to reach as many resources out there. So I think we just need to add to it.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's definitely not as mature in so many different ways. And there's so much so much that goes into it that that makes it difficult for companies to execute on So yeah, I think we're on the same same page there. So, um, so yeah, I think the next thing that I wanted to just touch upon is what are some of the trends that you're seeing in b2b e commerce like, you know, I think we can say we're kind of coming into this new decade, you know, you had the past decade, which I think was a little bit more about kind of people getting started with b2b e commerce and now I think we're seeing like, oh, like we really need to do this. There's more like kind of urgency from companies so

Unknown Speaker :

yeah, I see a couple trends out there. One of the one of the trends is, is really the embrace of social media. That's something that b2b was slower at. They really were behind the to see. And up until even a few years ago, there were major b2b players that I knew personally who were really not participating fully in social media. And that was a mistake. And it's something that they've tried to correct and it's still something that's developing. I'd say number two, one of the things that I see is a lot of b2b businesses are not. They're not communicating in the same ways that B and C businesses communicate outside of social. So for example, they're not doing the type of email programs that b2c businesses do. They're not a doing let's say it this is in a different time outside of our country. COVID-19 crisis but they're not doing pop ups in the same way when they could, they're using traditional tradeshow still a little too heavily, instead of being involved in ways to be to see his learn can be hybrid situations to help out a b2b player. So I think there are a lot of different things like that, including ongoing digitization, you know, just really learning how to take advantage of all the tech and the tools that are out there and to use them to their advantage, etc, is still ahead of most b2b players in that space.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you. And just to just to add to that, I mean, I think what makes it challenging for b2b is the social media aspect that you brought up, b2c, like I said, I think the playbook is a lot easier. You can kind of brand yourself on Instagram and just kind of target these consumers. Maybe you have a specific kind of segment that you're going after on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn, whatever it is, um, you know, Instagram maybe isn't as effective. I would say from Probably most of these, like, you know, b2b distributor type companies or manufacturer companies that might not be selling a exciting product per se. So what are you seeing as some of those channels that are being effective?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, I'm gonna challenge you on your assumption there. I think a lot of beauty pillars are surprised at how successful they've been in places like Instagram. And I'll just give you a quick example. Sure, there was an LED lighting company I worked with for quite some time. They were great. Love them, and they have b2b and b2c components of their business. And they have a pretty lively Instagram presence for b2c. And they put a wall up and they said we were not doing it for b2b Well, as soon as they started putting some explanatory videos or meet the researcher, you know, meet our scientists, you know, this kinds of thing to engage people on Instagram. It does To help their b2b side, they were getting brand new customers through Instagram in a verifiable and inexpensive fashion, mostly from just posting content that they were ordinarily going to create and put in other places. But they put it on Instagram, people are out there anyway. And it worked. So I think that that's something that folks have got to consider and to answer the other part of what you're proposing there, you know, where do you do it? LinkedIn is great, but but for a lot of businesses, it's finding a more specialized community. So if you're in fashion, but you're not just putting things out there for the consumer, you have to figure out where are all of those production facilities communicating about fabric and about the latest things that are going on? It takes a little more work because it may not be LinkedIn. It may be through a trade association, social media community, you know, that kind of thing. For example, there's a group called it ptac they work with manufacturers and that group is is very valuable to all different kinds of manufacturers in different categories, uses the Find your community through AIPAC, and then communicate socially through that. So there are a lot of different things that players can do.

Unknown Speaker :

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that that's really smart. And I think I think you're right, I think there's a play for everyone. You know, no matter how boring you might think your your industry is, I think there's a way to kind of reach an audience digitally, through some sort of mean of social media, you know, or forum or whatever it may be, it might be a little bit more niche. So I totally agree with that. I think some of the trends that we're seeing too, like on more of a technical side, or just kind of operational side is I think, a lot of companies have struggled with b2b e commerce because they're, they're, they're stuck in this legacy paradigm where they have everything in their MRP system and it's all in you know, my Microsoft Dynamics or SAP are in for all these systems. And most of those systems don't really have a modern e commerce system. Some of them were saying like or companies have had, maybe they built an e commerce kind of on top of that, and there are some, you know, legacy e commerce platforms on those kind of e commerce or E RPS. So you see these kind of like old b2b sites on these PRP systems, I think companies are finally realizing like, Hey, we need kind of like a more modern experience on a platform like Magento, or Shopify or big commerce, or we're actually seeing like, companies starting to consider Shopify for b2b. And I know that it lacks some of the b2b functionality, but they're realizing more consumer focused experience might actually help them. So I think that there's a trend that people are kind of starting to realize, like, oh, people, like businesses want that consumer experience and we need a platform that allows for that, and for a lot of these companies that's getting on to a Magento or You know, whatever it may be big commerce or something like that, but then now they have this challenge of integrating the GRP. And so they're, I think people are starting to get a little bit smarter about, hey, like, how do we do this? How do we kind of marry these two systems in a smart way? And that's a lot of the work that we've

Unknown Speaker :

been doing.

Unknown Speaker :

Well, you know, you brought up two really great topics that I think we can explore, you know, further in future episodes, because Because really, there is a trend, as you just pointed out, where it's, it's the consumer, and the the b2b commerce, you know, platform, you know, really thinking of these things a little more together, right. There's no reason cuz you know, we're all consumers. I mean, I think that's something that I always come back to when I talk to people about b2b. We're all consumers, every single one of us no matter what business we're in, so even if I work my entire career in b2b, it i'm also performing b2c functions on a regular basis. I go to a store So, right, I just buy something right? And there's no reason I can't have the same expectations, or use the same tech or have the same feeling about things. In b2b, I shouldn't have to do what people did until very recently, like filling out a form and scanning it or faxing it or, you know, these sorts of things that a lot of b2b companies we're still doing. There's no reason for that. I can easily fill out something online for b2c. And why can I do that for b2b? Right? So it's absolutely

Unknown Speaker :

Amazon's on such a good, good job of that. I mean, that one of their fastest growing segments is their b2b program. Like we're actually a b2b customer, we converted our account to be to be the like a trellis account, which actually you can do pretty easily. And they're starting to kind of build up that functionality. But the the experience is pretty much the same as if you're just buying as a consumer. And they're like, Hey, this is the b2b pricing that you get as being a business and it's still not very clear, like what the discounts are and why you're getting those discounts, but they're well, I think. I think they're moving in that direction. So the other trend that kind of goes hand in hand with that is, I think, as they're making the shift to this more modern ecommerce experience and system or whatever, that they decide that to be, um, I think they're realizing, oh crap, like, our product data needs to be monitored for the consumer. So I think we're seeing this kind of mentality shift where it's like, oh, wow, there's this whole product data exercise and operational challenge of modernizing our product data from you know, in the past, they had like skew and part number and you know, the price and some basic information about the or they have like these info sheets and a PDF or whatever. And then they would have their, their paper catalogs, right. But getting that to like a modern kind of product page experience, where you can see all the information about the product and see more information and kind of like, get that whatever you want to call it, Amazon. product experience, I think is a big hurdle for a lot of these companies. And we're seeing that a lot of companies are starting to realize like, hey, well now, do I need an external system like a pin, like a product information management system? So I think some b2b companies are starting to even realize that something like salsify might help them because their current er p isn't quite equipped for that, or they're customizing their therapy in a way that it does allow for that. How do we how do we manage product data from like a more consumer focused like mindset in terms of displaying it on the e commerce and it could also just be doing it on the e commerce site? So that's a big trend that we're seeing.

Unknown Speaker :

It's and I've seen it as well, from a number of perspectives. And a one of the things that's fascinating to me is that you're right. b2b companies didn't even think of naming of product in a sense, like some b2b companies, you know, let's say they were selling certain types of chemicals or metals or what have you just like part 123. Yeah, exactly. So it was this long letter a number codes and and you know you had meaning in a certain way and people who were in that system maybe they memorize those, you know long letter codes and you know number codes, but that's not the way it works out right so a lot of companies that are b2b today, they've learned how to categorize in a b2c category tree kind of structure. And you know, I'm not gonna diss people here I think that's not the right way to go. But I will pray it is. So I think one of the companies I know of that's done very well. And you and I have talked about this separately is a company like supply house in a supply house is a major b2b company. And you know, they do everything in a very b2c kind of fashion. You know, where you can look at pipes in a certain way and see a category tree online and follow it. So I don't have to be the most brilliant person as a plumber to understand what they're trying to do and to follow it online if I have to place In order for some reason, right, I don't have to say, Well wait, where do I find this code number? And where's the sales guide? Where's the person? And should I call the 800? Number? It's it's much more intuitive in a way that a B to C business would be intuitive.

Unknown Speaker :

Absolutely, yeah, I've been following them for a long time since I think I really kind of like started to get into this b2b commerce ecosystem in 2012. And it was fairly non existent. And I think supply houses one of the few out there that I remember seeing early on being like, hey, these guys are doing it, right. Like, how can I help other companies do this? And what I think I've learned is, it's a lot harder than I thought to kind of help companies get to, to that level is, there's more to it than just, you know, building the infrastructure. There's so many, so many things that goes into it. Um, so yeah, I mean, we talked a little bit about the trends and that actually, you just kind of segue right into the next topic that I wanted to talk about is Who's doing well in b2b commerce, like who are some use cases of companies that are out are doing well. And, you know, I think supply house is a great example. Another one that I, you know, I just want to quickly touch on is true par. They were actually on one of the few b2b e commerce podcasts that I could find the CEO of true par. And I believe they use Oro commerce, which is a newer b2b e commerce platform. And they've done a similar job to like to supply house where you can go online, you can see all the products you can kind of get the consumer like experience, but you could still login and build that kind of like b2b experience. Well, I think they've done really well is they use a company called approve. It's a new kind of like tech startup, kind of like a b2b financing app. So instead of traditionally, you know, a lot of these companies, you have to get an account with them, kind of work with them on a manual basis to get like, maybe some Corporate pricing and, you know, go through this kind of like process to become a customer and get like logged in and get the correct pricing on the website approved as they kind of automate some of that process so that you can kind of automatically go through their application and get credit and financing through approve, approve takes on the wrist, so the b2b company doesn't have to worry. And they can just kind of like immediately allow them to buy as a b2b customer, programmatically. So they're doing that very well. And it's, it's pretty cool to see that they I think on the podcast, they said 85% of their customers they never have to talk to or it's fully automated.

Unknown Speaker :

Now that's that sounds like a dream, you know that number. For me to be I mean, that's, that's remarkable if you can actually, you know, give people enough tools online, so that they're able and go through whatever processes they need to that's amazing because that's so unusual for a lot of b2b players still don't have a percent that's that high. I mean, that's amazing. But what I was Yeah, I mean, what I would say to just other other folks out there I mean a lot of b2b service businesses I'm aware of are also do I think they're ahead of b2b product businesses like b2b service seems to be a little bit ahead

Unknown Speaker :

again I could give me an example of Yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

yeah sure. I mean well did I think a lot of players in insurance for example business insurance It sounds so you know, dry you know, it's not something I ever get excited about. But you can easily find what you need you can go out there you can get it you get contact with somebody set up an appointment here done I mean, it really is a lot easier than it used to be with like finding that's so

Unknown Speaker :

true. I think we have like an online portal with our you know, for our company insurance and you can like pay online and it's kind of like more automated experience and the more we think about your writing a lot of these online portals or some of these, you know, kind of service Is are actually getting more sophisticated.

Unknown Speaker :

They are getting, I think better and they've really it think of even things like Rocket Lawyer, you know, Rocket Lawyer is not for, you know, the average b2c kind of consumer, they're really b2b. And you know, you go there and you can do all kinds of different legal agreements, you know, contracts of all sorts, you know, pay either a monthly fee or a yearly fee or pay per document or creating. So sure they have a b2c component, but it's become very valuable to small businesses. So you have to go out there and hire a lawyer and then get things reviewed and go through revisions. And so that's happened also all of the, I would say paycheck expense related stuff for small businesses like companies like expensify. Just absolutely. Taking pictures of receipts, uploading it, get it sending it to having it linked to whatever your back end system is and getting those checks paid, you know, all that kind of stuff. I think as moved along very, very quickly, b2b product has moved along, you know, less quickly, in my experience, I think b2b service, maybe why do you? And I it's funny that you say that because why why do you think that is? Because it from a theoretical standpoint, selling a product isn't very new. In some ways. I think it's harder to automate these services. Why do you think it is that these product companies

Unknown Speaker :

have lagged so far behind? You know, we obviously talked about some of the reasons but you think it's a cultural thing that they're just not? You know, I think we see a little bit of that, I think that's part of the answer, but I'm just curious to hear your

Unknown Speaker :

part of it is culture. I mean, and again, we can bring this up to our listeners, you know, in a future episode, too, but I think that part of it is cultural. You know, you just are in a business and it's, it is literal, a literal legacy, not just talking about legacy businesses, you know, where people use that term, but it's literal legacy, your years Doing something that maybe was 100 year old business, you know, it's been around for a very long time you're doing something that has worked, right. I mean, think of it this way your business has worked and there have been upturns and downturns in the economy, and you're more resistant to change. Whereas a lot, it's a lighter touch needed. Even, you know, in some of the service related changes have happened. I could come in and say, you know, let me get work with a lawyer who's a friend of mine and try to figure out how to do these online contracts and use an existing tool to kind of get it out in front of people. You know, it's a little bit different when you're working with all the components for I'll use again, the example where I worked and LED lighting manufacturer they have, they make LED lights, headlights for car companies like BMW and they make LED lights for Harley Davidson for motorcycles, and then they also make streetlights, you know, for communities around the world. All of this kind of stuff. They had Focused dedicated salespeople and sales teams, because they're different communities. But once they started thinking of these in the same way that people think of B to C, you know, you have your online community and their people in car headlights, you know, the car headlight community, it's very specific. But there's a reason they can't just build, you know, the pool of content and get people engaged there, and then have them, you know, do things in an automated way. And that's what they did. It took a while. It took a lot of you shaking people up, but the salespeople are happy, you know, it doesn't doesn't mean that they had to leave. They just have a different way of doing what they were doing.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, no, that's a good point. I think I think, you know, what I what I kind of want to segue into is like, what are the different because I think there's a big difference between a manufacturer and obviously depends on their industry. And then you have certain distributors that that don't necessarily make the product and then you have like wholesalers that are They're kind of in between, you know, distribution and consumer, you know, retail and I think a lot of those wholesalers, like a Costco, obviously consider them a wholesale, they're like pretty pretty far along with e commerce relative to some of the companies that we're kind of talking about. So I'm curious, like to hear your perspective, but from our perspective of experience that we've had, you know, the manufacturers I think, are a little bit easier to ease into ecommerce because they can sell direct to consumer. So sometimes they'll kind of like start with that and it's kind of like, hey, let's maybe they use Shopify or whatever it is, and they kind of like, foray into the direct consumer a little bit. Obviously, depends on what they sell, or they might just kind of sell like a basic version of what they have to try and kind of automate like a piece of it. And it seems like that's a little bit of a lighter process. But I think once you start going into like, you know, these large distribution, you know, where they have like hundreds of thousands of products, but honestly make them it becomes this like operation challenge that I think they're just not quite ready for internally to digitize that. And that's where I think we see a bigger challenge with some of these companies.

Unknown Speaker :

Well, you know, your your, and again, I think all of these are worthy of like deep exploration. That's one of the reasons that it's great that we're doing this podcast. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

I think they all deserve their own like, we should probably talk about Justin as manufacturers and this one thing, which they do because it's

Unknown Speaker :

Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

You're absolutely right. But to touch on just a couple observations that I have, I mean, they're, you know, I started in brick and mortar retail, actually, I was a retail exec for Bloomingdale's and Macy's and some other places before I came into e commerce long ago. So I was in that world. Think about how the retail supply chain works. And you know, you don't have to, we don't go into great exhaustive detail on this. But you know, you have wholesalers, you have manufacturers of clothing, think of a Ralph Lauren. You know what happens like he's making clothes, they're coming from all over the world. They're going to distribution centers to be sold to places like Macy's and Bloomingdale's and his own stores. And this was pre online, you know, when I was there. And so where did the product go when all over the place, but they even had catalogs and all of this. And then you have people who are buying it wholesale, you know, that Macy's or Bloomingdale's? They're buying us manufactured goods, they're buying wholesale to sell, and then they have these specific agreements in place. Well, it's complicated. Right. So what is Ralph Lauren? Do? Let's think about just an example like that in in today's world, Ralph Lauren still exists. There's a massive b2c business. There's a massive b2b business

Unknown Speaker :

massive. I mean, absolutely. I think he

Unknown Speaker :

makes, I think is a real number. I think he makes 8 million men's polo shirts a year like I remember this from somebody else.

Unknown Speaker :

And obviously those are sold through a lot of you know, retailers. They sell to

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, exactly. All over the world, different channels, different ways. So how do you manage that? Right? Well, one thing they've done, and again, very few people see this because they don't interact with it, like, as a consumer, you wouldn't know. But what they've done is that they have, they do have a very sophisticated system where they funnel people in. Like, if you are contacting Ralph for rent and you want to potentially sell a men's polo shirts in your one off boutique, there's a process to go through and a lot of it is online, they ask you all these questions about your business? Are you appropriately the right size? Are you going to be competing with somebody who has an exclusive to that area? Whatever, right? They put you through that digitally, you know, quote, unquote, online, they don't have you talking with somebody in person and meeting and sending paperwork back and forth. It's all digital now until you get to a certain step. So that's a model I think For a lot of people where it could, it was complicated. There's so many different things going on. It's getting easier. And that can happen for anything. It doesn't have to there's wholesaler, there's retail there. There's b2c, and there's b2b. And they also have services. They do tailoring services and couture clothing and all the stuff outside of the product. Right? So it's a big, big, big world you can take just rip apart one business like that and do an analysis and might be instructive.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, I agree. I think we'll, we might want to save that for different different podcasts. They get into like, the different industries because I think that's what makes it so complex. And that's why that's why I'm so interested to do this because I think would be to see, like I said, I think there's we're our b2c customers Besides, you know, obviously certain categories like apparel, you know, we're dealing with Coronavirus, which is obviously like unprecedented a lot of them are thriving right now, because your playbook is simple. You know, they're they're on Shopify or they're on Magento whatever it is. You know, we advertise on Instagram, we target a certain ROI return on investment. There's certain, like this playbook that's working. And I think obviously, there's nuances per per industry but would be to be I think, you there's almost like, you almost need like a industry specific manufacturer playbook or industry specific distribution playbook that's kind of nuance to their, you know, segment of type of b2b right? as, you know, type of company, you're not gonna have the Ralph Lauren brand, so they can't necessarily, they might have, they might have less brand value, you know what I mean? So they have to

Unknown Speaker :

kind of their universal lessons, and then there are all of these ones that are much more local, right? I mean, so I think it's gonna be kind of a movement back and forth. There's going to be a flow where you know, where we're sharing some things that are universal, they're going to apply to anybody who's listening anyone and I think that those are going to be gold, but they're also things that are going to be very, very specific like when we're talking about apparel is a world that unto itself in a lot of ways, you have to understand how it works, you know?

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah. But I agree, I

Unknown Speaker :

think the more that I've done this, the more things that we learn in one industry can often apply to another. So. So yeah, just conscious of time. On the other topic. You know, we talked a little bit about some of the companies that are doing well, and I think I'll kind of touch on that a little bit. I think there's more to talk about there. But I want to talk about what stopping b2b companies from doing well in e commerce. So from my perspective, I think a lot of it is expectation setting is they you know, they might have some legacy e or e commerce system, it's not really helping them as much as they needed to. So they're like, Oh, we got to rebuild this. We got to modernize. And I think part of it is that they just don't, they don't have they don't have enough experience. So their expectations are a little bit off. So a good example is I think, I heard that Granger was like a initial Granger site that was kind of like one of the first big you know b2b distributions. He was like $6 million, or $7 million, or something like that. So you have all these other b2b companies going, Hey, you know, we want to we want to be like Granger or whatever. But, you know, obviously, they don't have $6 million budget. So I think there's this challenge where you kind of have to like crawl, walk, run, and it's like, let's say you have 100 grand, you know, where do you start with 100 grand and your specific, you know, subset or industry or use case and I think you have to be kind of, I think that's what's stopping a lot of companies is they think they, you know, we get a lot of RFPs and, and, and expectations that when you really think about it, it's like what they want is a half million dollar project, but they only have 100,000. So there's this big disconnect with the reality of what it's going to take to get to get over the hump. And, you know, there's you might be able to get a really good, you know, provider to get some extra value, but there's a certain point where there's only so much you can do with so much money and I think that you have to kind of like build this iterative approach. Like maybe you Want to get to that half million dollar site? But maybe like you start with this base, and you kind of build up to there? And I think a lot of b2b companies struggle with that mindset, because they don't. They're not used to this kind of Agile iterative development process.

Unknown Speaker :

Well, I think you brought up a couple things that are going to be in the universal category. Right? It's all just, that's something we'll put on the side there. There are things that are going to be universal for all of our listeners, and the crawl, walk run, you know, image is always a very useful one. You know, I think that what's stopping a lot of companies from progress, is that they, they believe that they have to take a bigger leap than they really need to, or they've never taken the smaller steps. Maybe that's another angle to look at. Yeah. So what I've often said to to businesses is that it's probably more important for you to have constant innovation constant than to be thinking what am I going to save up for for three years from that, right? Because, right? Because some businesses are just like that. They'll say, Well, you know, we want to invest in a completely new set of tech and tools, and it's going to be a new platform is going to do this. And, you know, we're like, oh, that's exciting. You know, how are you approaching? Uh, well, we're putting money away. We're thinking about this. And it'll be 2 million in 2024. And, and that's not going to be the right answer for almost anyone. It really isn't it just I agree. I mean, and the best because also by 2024,

Unknown Speaker :

the whole market is going to change and the platform's are going to change, whatever you are starting to work towards, might not be competitive anymore. And you kind of have to get some stuff out in the market and test it. And I think once you have a little bit more of a mature infrastructure, it actually gets a little bit easier, I think to do those bigger projects because you like we're actually doing a pretty major Rebuild of our website, but our website was mature enough where we can kind of knew what we wanted. And we knew what we needed to do to get to the next level. But had we not had already a decent kind of infrastructure? I don't think it would have worked this next kind of like big project. So I totally agree with that. Like it. I think if you're starting from a really basic level, and you don't have something modern, trying to all of a sudden, cram it into one big project, I just think that there's so much risk and room for failure there. Yeah. And so much misaligned. Like, no matter what, as an agency like us, or you know, and some of the companies I'm sure you've worked with, there's just like, it's almost impossible to set expectations in those situations because they've never done it before. And in their mind, they're going to get this like whiz bang thing, but they're starting from like, almost zero. So I think, to me, what I think stopping companies is what do you actually need to move forward? And to me, I think for most b2b like let's let's start focused on the product because like you said, I think somebody services are starting to get stronger. And they might have tech teams and these insurance companies do have internal software engineers. But these product companies don't really have that. So I think what's stopping them is that they're trying to do everything all at once. And what if I were them, what I would focus on is just how can I come up with a good operational workflow, which probably includes tying into their PRP, because realistically, they're probably still stuck on their GRP. So that needs to kind of tie into the e commerce and get good product data up on the website. So like, I think if you can accomplish that, and have an have a good long lasting system, so we typically like Magento, because we feel like you can build upon it. And there's a lot of like rooms to kind of iterate on top of Magento but doesn't have to be Magento. It could be any system. I think that what's stopping them is it's it's hard for them to envision doing just that, like they want to do everything. And so I really encourage companies to think like hey, what if I just, you know, I sell on this system. And all I'm going to do is make sure I have a really good DRP integration that covers kind of the use cases and usability and functionality that my customers need, at least from a basic level, and get all the great product data into that system. And then have a you know, a little bit of my branding and design that makes it kind of like a nice, modern responsive experience, but not much more than that and just get that done. And then like maybe you iterate on that.

Unknown Speaker :

I think a lot of companies. I think that's the right

Unknown Speaker :

place with that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker :

it's the right lesson. It's absolutely the right lesson because it's, you know, there, there are all kinds of terms that people use for you don't want to, you don't want to be stuck, you don't want to get yourself stuck because you're trying to achieve something that's too big, that's going to take too long. You want your business to continue to, you know, to iterate, right, you know, that's that's really a great word for this. It's not just innovation, it's an iteration, you're constantly doing something and then the next thing on top of it, and that that's really critical piece, you're going to get a nice ROI out of that you're always going to have a return on any of these improvements. And if you keep moving that incremental, you know, improvement is going to really add up to something big. So, gotta just go, you know, there's a waiting, there's got to just go, what are we doing this week? You know, what's happening this quarter? Those are the questions asked, and almost any business and if you if you don't have an answer to that, like, what are we working on this quarter? That's a problem to begin with.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker :

So I know we're gonna start to run out of time here, we're trying to keep it around 45 minutes, which we think is a good a good time. So they don't lose too much. You know, patience listening for this for too long. Um, so one thing I just wanted to touch on that, I think is another big hurdle that we see with b2b e commerce and probably should have an entire podcast around that is one thing that we see that stopping people is kind of like They kind of go hand in hand is pricing. And getting like a automated pricing structure that allows people to transact online, we see is a big hurdle where a lot of companies and this was I think this was one time one of our clients got acquired by one of the largest biotech companies in the world. You know, I can't, can't speak to the details there don't want to break any NDA confidentiality. But it was it was pretty amazing to see some of these like massive billion dollar companies, and they don't have any standardized pricing. So like, there's no way to really do b2b commerce because everything still has to be kind of like individualized or quoted out on a one to one basis. And I think that really stops a lot of b2b companies from doing a better job with e commerce is because the pricing is just such a mess, and it's so one to one and it's almost like, hey, well, we think we can charge this guy this much. And then we're gonna charge this guy a different price just because, you know, you're trying to, you know, kind of maximize that one off. opportunity just doesn't scale very well online when you try and standardize pricing. Well, you know, just two

Unknown Speaker :

quick observations on that the pricing where it was one to one. You know, I've seen that firsthand. And I think that one of the things that, you know, b2b consumers are happy about is that that is going away. Because it really, it was just too much mystery. You didn't know if there were competitors of yours who are getting better pricing for something that you needed, because they were maybe had a friend there because they had a bigger order that they're replacing. The transparency is good all around. It's going to help every b2b commerce player I think, over time, just to understand what the rules are, you know, is it is it quantity related discounts, is it you know, some sort of a system where there's a one to three from good, better and best, and that's the way that I'm making my purchases? It really needs there needs to be a special Proctor it needs to be transparent. I need to know that as I grow my business that I can get this many of this item for price x and save right I need to understand that I don't need to be told that oh, I did achieve x so I can't get that deal because there's some secret thing happening behind me so that