Persuading your trade customers to embrace ecommerce

In an effort to make your wholesale customers' lives easier, you have set up a Stock2Shop B2B Trade Store. Now they can log on any time, day or night, to see their pricing, check stock levels, and place orders directly into their account.

Of course, all your customers are excited about this easy new way of doing business, and have immediately started using the Trade Store! Except… they haven’t.

Unfortunately, people are usually reluctant to change, even if it’s for their own good. This is especially true if they have been doing something the “old way” for a long time. So if you have been taking orders by phone/Whatsapp/email/smoke signal for many years, your customers may well resist using your Trade Store.

The good news is that usually, all it takes is some gentle coaxing to get them to order online once, and then they will never want to go back. Below are some suggestions for convincing customers to take the plunge:

Make it their easiest option

If customers are allowed to to phone you up or order on WhatsApp/email, they will continue to do that. If you close those avenues to them, or at least reserve them for special circumstances, they will move to the Trade Store.

Make it the more effective option

Tell customers that orders placed online will sync straight into your ERP system. This means they will be processed quicker and more accurately.

Make it the cheaper option

When airlines first started going ecommerce, they struggled to get customers to book online. Eventually, they started charging a surcharge of R50 for all telephonic bookings. This did the trick! You might prefer to incentivise through a discount rather than go the surcharge route, in which case you can issue new customers with once-off coupons.

Tell them the benefits

The only thing preventing customers from using the Trade Store is fear of the unknown. If you tell them all the ways it will benefit them, they are likely to try it. These benefits include:

• Customers can place orders 24/7. No more waiting for office hours or being placed on hold.
• Customers can log on to see accurate pricing and stock. No more waiting for the sales rep to mail through an updated price list and stock sheet.
• The Trade Store is mobile-friendly, which means it can be accessed wherever there is internet access.
• Orders are synced directly into your ERP, which means no human error from duplicate data capture and no unnecessary delays in order processing.

Show them how to use the platform

A great way to help customers transition to your Trade Store is to show them what to expect. This can be achieved by sending them an instructional PDF with screenshots to help them navigate, but the first prize would be creating an explainer video. In this case study, you can find an example of such a video created by one of our clients.

Once your customers start using the B2B Trade Store, life will become easier for everyone, including you and your sales reps. If you don’t yet have an online wholesale store and would like to make your business more efficient, give us a call.