Are you a manufacturer ? Why eCommerce can be for you

Sometimes it seems that electronic commerce is just for those who sell directly to the end customer (B2C).Even wholesalers are reluctant to see how to integrate this sales channel into their strategy despite the evolution of B2B is on the Internet. 

With this situation, it is not too difficult to imagine that eCommerce has found it difficult to gain a place among manufacturers. In general, they are more comfortable with an Internet approach goaled, at best, to give themselves some visibility among the distributors who are the link between their product and the end customer. 

It really represents a momentous change in strategy, almost a paradigm shift. This implies changing many aspects of the way we produce, work, sell, distribute …We must re-adapt our after-sales service and the way we interact with the customer. But it makes up for it. 

We are going to see some of the advantages of going through this process of adaptation.

There is the paradox that we design and manufacture a product thinking about solving the needs of a type of person, but we only know their opinion through the perception of a third party.

When there is a direct sale, despite the complexity it may have at the beginning, we can understand our target much better providing us  with first-hand information. 

If we put that information to a good use, we can use it to enhance the strongest points and solve the competitive weaknesses.  

The fact of being able to understand our client always enriches the company, improves our product and service. 

Currently, we are limited to a single type of professional buyer who purchases large quantities of product.This leaves out both small stores and end consumers. 

A good verticalization strategy, in which we also assume this type of sale, allows us to reach important segments due to their joint volume.

Of course, when a hybrid strategy is going to be maintained, it is important to do it with certain care to avoid that our distributors end up seeing us as a threat and give priority to the sale of our competitors' products. 

The digital channel, and this has been proven, is more profitable in many ways than being focused exclusively on offline. 

It is not just a matter of forgetting about intermediaries through direct sales (which already represents considerable savings). Keep in mind that one of the most obvious advantages is that the customer can buy autonomously, with almost no intervention from our team. 

If this does not just make your sales team very happy, make them see that the web can largely replace printed catalogs (very expensive, heavy and with a high expiration as new products come out) and make their work more agile .

Furthermore, we can say that the online store for manufacturers makes us more efficient at the cost level, while we become a more productive business. 

Setting our basic KPIs is very complicated when we do not have neither the analytical capacity nor the appropriate data.The digital channel is increasingly important, and if we do not have that part of information we can say that we are partially blind. 

Only by using the basic metrics of Google Analytics can we begin to broaden our vision. And if we add the conversion data and custom events, the insights we extract. 

In addition to all this, using qualitative techniques such as user interviews, card sorting, A / B tests ... we are able to know not only how much, but also what. 

It is not a question of generalization because, as we will comment soon, there are very interesting exceptions. Even so, the truth is that the type of pages that we usually see are characterized by having a more informational approach, very product, almost technical.

They talk about materials, production processes, together with abundant documentation and very long or very technical descriptions ... and, at most, they have a contact form. This is not a mistake, it makes sense as long as we understand the target audience. 

If we change the segmentation, we must also change the approach to the digital channel. It is not enough to decide that you are going to sell to end customers and pretend that this works by magic without a deeper strategic adjustment in communication, tone and, obviously, in operational and functional aspects to turn a standard website into a online store.