24 Mar The Critical Role of Content in B2B eCommerce
In the last few years, B2B eCommerce has become as popular as its B2C counterparts.
Studies show that B2B e commerce model has reached a worldwide value of $7.7 trillion compared to B2C’s $2.3 trillion. Content has played a major role in the growth of B2B eCommerce.
Product specifications and functionality, product comparisons, product reviews, and product tutorials are some of the most popular content forms that help consumers in their decision-making process.
However, the work does not stop with just creating content. The content has to be relevant, updated, accurate, and searchable. It should be so well-categorized and organized that the consumer should not feel lost or left confused while searching for their desired product on the website. They should be able to find the right product and make the right purchase decision effortlessly. Insufficient or inaccurate product content should not be the cause for consumers to leave the website.
Let’s look at how to create and update such high-quality content regularly and standardize it to make it relevant and accurate for consumers across various geographical locations.
Best Practices for High-Quality B2B eCommerce Content
Write accurate product descriptions
A study reveals that 70% of the consumers consider detailed product descriptions a critical parameter for buying a product. Detailed and accurate product descriptions help consumers to find products on the website easily. Focus on writing accurate product descriptions with complete details such as technical specifications, images, price, videos, etc. This approach is particularly useful when the company adds more products to the website. It helps the consumers to find the right product using specific keywords or by narrowing down the available options on the site. It is also important to ensure that the product description is optimized and categorized correctly, so consumers can easily find the product using generic or specific keywords. To maintain content accuracy, the description should be free of spelling errors, should mention accurate prices, and follow consistency in writing the brand names.
Update the product information regularly
Imagine this, a consumer searches for a specific product on an eCommerce website. They find the product they wanted. However, when they read the product description, they realize it is outdated, or unavailable. Sounds familiar? As companies add more products to their website, they forget to update the older product pages. The critical role of content in b2b ecommerce. McKinsey’s survey of 1000 buyers showed that only 10% of them are willing to purchase from a B2B website. That’s because the product pages were outdated, lacked the functionality they expected, or there were no comparisons available with other products. That’s why it’s crucial to update the pages with precise and accurate information. Companies must audit the product pages regularly to identify gaps and update them. They can update the pages by adding updated product information with the right keywords, an FAQ section to answer common and specific consumer queries, customer reviews, and a product comparison section to help consumers make an informed decision. Companies can also upload product videos and the latest product images to give consumers a preview of its features and benefits.
Standardize and normalize the product descriptions
Typically, a consumer searches for a product name or uses a generic keyword to search for a product. If the product name is not as per the brand’s name or if there is a spelling error or incorrect currency or units specified, the consumer might lose trust and abandon the website. As companies expand their reach to different locations and add more sales channels, they have to be careful that their product content is displayed consistently across all platforms. Considering that suppliers do not follow any particular guidelines while sharing product data, the onus lies on the company to standardize and normalize it. Content standardization will help to standardize product titles, spellings, capitalization, brand name, and pricing format. The objective is to maintain the quality of the product content across all consumer touchpoints. Content normalization involves optimizing the existing product descriptions to ensure that the product attributes are in the right format and in the right fields. It also enables the company to eliminate duplicate content and provide clean, unique product information on the website. Standardization and normalization of product descriptions can play a significant role in improving the consumer experience.
Conclusion
Content is an engine that helps a B2B eCommerce site to run efficiently. Hence, it must be created, updated, and standardized frequently to maintain the website’s quality. Clean and accurate content is the first step to conversions. Companies have to constantly weed out outdated content and irrelevant data to ensure that the website works efficiently. All these activities are time-consuming and require a partner who has experience in creating, updating, and managing content effectively.
At GrihaSoft, we provide end-to-end catalog management services to B2B eCommerce companies. We help companies with:
- Product classification
- Form item descriptions
- Catalog building and indexing
- Image processing
- Templates creation for various platforms
- And product uploading
We ensure better searchability of products, easy navigation, robust catalogs, and updated information on the website, so the B2B eCommerce companies can improve their revenue and thrive in this competitive space. For more details, contact us.
