I've consulted with B2B ecommerce businesses worldwide for ten years. I also have assisted in the installation of new B2B websites and with continuing support.
This post is the fourth in a series where I tackle common mistakes of B2B ecommerce merchants. The first post addressed errors associated with catalogue pricing and management. The second clarified user management and customer service failures. The third post discussed glitches from shopping carts and order management systems.
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With this setup, I will review mistakes associated with shipping, returns, and inventory management.
B2B Mistakes: Shipping, Returns, Inventory
Limited shipping choices. Many B2B sites only offer one transport method. Customers don't have any option for quicker shipping. Connected to this is delaying an whole order because of a single, back-ordered thing, wherein an arrangement has multiple products and one of these is out of stock. Often the whole order is delayed rather than shipping available products straight away.
One order, 1 shipping address. Business buyers often require items to be sent to multiple locations. But a lot of B2B systems allow only one shipping address with every order, forcing buyers to make individual orders for each place.
Limited in-transit visibility. B2B orders don't typically offer in-transit visibility to demonstrate where the goods are in the delivery procedure. It becomes more important for international orders where transit times are longer, and goods can get stuck in customs or docking locations. This is slowly changing with logistics providers including real-time detector monitoring, but it elevates the degree of in-transit visibility provided by B2C merchants.
No specific delivery dates. Business orders don't generally have an specific delivery date but, rather, have a date range. This affects businesses that need the stock. Furthermore, there are typically no penalties for delayed shipments or incentives for on-time deliveries.
Complicated returns. Returns are complex for B2B orders for numerous reasons. First, providers do not typically include return tags with shipments. Second, suppliers provide no pick-up provider, even for big returns. Third, return refunds can take weeks, in my own experience. Fourth, buyers rarely inspect coming products -- such as through a video call -- to expedite the return procedure.
Limited online returns monitoring. A company could order 100 units of one solution, and 25 of these arrive damaged or faulty. Ideally, that business ought to be able to return these 25 goods and connect a reason for each. Rarely do B2B sites provide such return and monitoring capabilities.
No real time stock levels. B2B ecommerce sites don't normally offer real-time stock levels to prospective buyers. This, along with no real time lead times, gives buyers little thought as to when they can expect their orders.
Challenges with vendor-managed inventory. Business buyers frequently rely on providers to control the buyer's inventory. The process is very similar to a subscription in which the supplier ships merchandise to the purchaser's warehouse at predetermined intervals. However, I've seen buyers discuss incorrect real-time stock levels with providers. The result is confusion for both parties and too much stock or not enough.
Canceled orders because of out-of-stocks. Many B2B ecommerce sites accept orders without checking stock levels. This frequently leads to canceled orders once the items are out of stock -- usually after the purchaser has waited days for the goods.
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