Are you making these 4 B2B pricing mistakes?
As you move into the new year and begin taking stock of your B2B business and planning out for the rest of the year, it’s important to make sure you’re considering all areas where you might improve. An important part of this reflection process is looking for opportunities for improvement. Ask yourself one question: how often did you think about your pricing in 2018? If you answered a little bit or not at all, I have both good and bad news. The bad news first: you probably underperformed last year by leaving money on the table. But don’t worry, there’s still that good news: pricing is a huge lever for your B2B business, and even small improvements will pay dividends quickly. Using a “set it and forget it” pricing strategy Pricing is an influential aspect of any SaaS business, yet most companies focus their efforts on product development and marketing while treating pricing as an afterthought. Effective marketing, pricing, and product development must work together for any B2B SaaS business to succeed; if one of the three links is weak, the entire chain won’t live up to its full potential. Developing a great product and increasing market awareness is undoubtedly important. But one could argue that pricing has an even larger impact on the success of your SaaS business; nothing impacts customer purchasing decisions more; and no other area of your business can be changed and produce positive results as fast as pricing. Are you using “set and forget” pricing? Try this instead: Don’t treat pricing as an afterthought, but instead as a core competency of your business. Pricing is a process that must be continually tested and re-evaluated to determine the proper mix of packages and prices that appeal to your customers. Not experimenting with your pricing We’ve established that constantly testing and evaluating your pricing strategy is important. But many companies are unaware of how to go about doing this. A/B testing allows you to test the performance of multiple strategies to see which aspects of each perform well. This can help your business understand the optimal mix of product features and prices that appeal to your customers, allowing you to optimize your pricing. Even companies that regularly check in on their pricing often don’t experiment to figure out what their customers want and what they’re willing to pay; in order to make changes. Are you failing to experiment with your pricing? Try this instead: A/B Testing should be a part of every B2B SaaS company’s pricing arsenal. It allows a company to evaluate multiple pricing options before settling on a final strategy that combines the best aspects of each tested option. Having incomplete persona analyses A lot of SaaS companies make the mistake of assigning pricing tiers to the buyer personas they develop for marketing. While this is better than simply guessing, it still leaves you with an incomplete picture. That of who your potential customers are, what they want, and, most importantly, what they’re willing to pay. Are your personas lacking? Try this: Your best bet is to develop new personas for pricing purposes that take into consideration feature preferences and willingness to pay. This product-specific information will allow you to develop multiple, feature differentiated pricing tiers; which appeal to the different types of customers interested in your product. Charging based on the wrong criteria In simple terms, a value metric is what and how you are charging. In the B2B SaaS market, the importance of using a correct value metric cannot be overstated. The best value metrics ensure that your customers are paying for your product according to the benefits they receive from it. For example, most CRM providers such as Salesforce charge according to the value metric of users—the customer pays more as the amount of users increases. Theoretically, an increase in Salesforce users should translate to an increase in revenue for the customer. This benefit of increased revenue is what justifies Salesforce charging for each additional user. Are you pricing based on the wrong value metric? Try this: Make sure you’re pricing based on the value metrics that your customers truly care about and that make sense to them. Conclusion These common mistakes are costing B2B SaaS companies millions, if not billions, of dollars in recurring revenue each year. Set yourself and your company up for success by fixing these pricing mistakes sooner rather than later. Remember: there is no holy grail of pricing strategy that will fix all of your problems. Recognize mistakes and meet them head-on by collecting data from customers, utilizing A/B testing, and pooling the most successful aspects of tested strategies. Then it builds the final strategy that is right for your business, and then revisit that strategy often to fine-tune it as your business and your customers grow and evolve.
Ecommerce Strategy 101: Enhancing with a Product Recommendation System
In today’s online shopping world, having a product recommendation system is crucial for eCommerce success. Such systems use smart algorithms to provide personalized product suggestions to customers, making their shopping experience smoother and driving more sales. Let’s discover why these systems are vital and how they can transform your eCommerce strategy. Why Implement a Product Recommendation System? Implementing a product recommendation system can significantly enhance various aspects of your eCommerce business. According to McKinsey, companies that excel in personalization generate 40% more revenue from those activities than average players. Here’s why it’s a must-have tool for any online store. Increase Sales and Revenue with a Product Recommendation System These solutions can dramatically boost your sales and overall revenue. Personalized recommendations encourage customers to purchase more by showing them products they are likely to be interested in. Studies have shown that a significant portion of eCommerce revenue can be attributed to recommendation engines. Leveraging these systems allows you to tap into potential sales that might otherwise be missed. Enhance User Experience through a Product Recommendation System Enhancing the user experience is another critical benefit of a product recommendation system. By tailoring the shopping experience to each individual, customers can find what they need more quickly and easily. This approach makes the shopping experience smoother and more enjoyable for customers by providing personalized and relevant product suggestions, leading to higher satisfaction and repeat visits. Boost Customer Loyalty with a Product Recommendation System Customer loyalty is essential for sustained business growth. An effective system can help build and maintain customer loyalty by continuously providing value. Atom8—BigCommerce Automation helps maintain customer loyalty by automating follow-up emails and personalized offers. This ensures customers feel valued and are more likely to return. By continually engaging customers with relevant and personalized recommendations, you can foster a loyal customer base to support your business in the long run. Types of Product Recommendation Engines A product recommendation system can be built using different types of filtering methods. Each method has its own way of suggesting products to customers. Understanding these types will help you choose the right approach for your eCommerce store. Content-Based Filtering Content-based filtering is a straightforward method used by many product recommendation systems. It focuses on product attributes to make recommendations, which is particularly useful for new users with little browsing history. This approach ensures that customers see products similar to what they have shown interest in, making it easier for them to discover new items that match their preferences. For example, if a customer views a particular style of shoes, the system will recommend other shoes with similar styles and features. Collaborative Filtering Collaborative filtering takes a different approach. This method analyzes user behavior data to find patterns, relying on users’ preferences and actions to recommend products. Atom8 automates collaborative filtering by continuously analyzing user behavior data to provide up-to-date recommendations. This method helps identify user trends and preferences, ensuring that the suggestions are highly relevant and tailored to individual tastes. For instance, if several users who bought a particular laptop also purchased a specific mouse, the system will recommend that mouse to others looking at the laptop. Hybrid Filtering Hybrid filtering combines both content-based and collaborative filtering to deliver more precise and personalized recommendations. By leveraging the strengths of both methods, hybrid systems can offer a more robust product recommendation system. This type of system ensures that recommendations are not only based on similar products but also on what other users with similar tastes have liked or purchased. For example, a customer viewing a smartphone might get recommendations for accessories based on product features (content-based) and other users’ purchasing patterns (collaborative filtering). By implementing a product recommendation system that uses hybrid filtering, you can ensure your customers receive the most relevant and personalized suggestions. This approach helps in creating a seamless shopping experience, encouraging customers to explore and purchase more items. Strategic Placement of Product Recommendation System The placement of your product recommendation system is crucial for maximizing its effectiveness. By strategically placing recommendations throughout your site, you can guide shoppers, enhance their experience, and increase sales. Search Results Pages Placing recommendations on search results pages is vital for helping customers discover products they might have missed. When shoppers search for something specific, having additional suggestions can lead them to items they hadn’t initially considered. By adding recommendations to search results pages, you help shoppers explore your catalog more thoroughly and stay engaged with your site. This can lead to higher satisfaction and more completed purchases. Homepages The homepage is often the first customer interaction with your site, making it a prime location for your product recommendation system. Displaying trending, seasonal, or personalized products can capture the attention of both new and returning visitors. Using the homepage for personalized recommendations can significantly improve user engagement and encourage customers to start their shopping journey on your site. It sets the tone for a tailored shopping experience right from the beginning. Product Detail Pages Product detail pages are where customers decide whether to purchase an item. Adding recommendations here can keep them interested, even if they decide not to buy the initial product they viewed. By providing these recommendations, you keep customers on your site longer and encourage them to explore more options, which can lead to increased sales and a higher average order value. Checkout Pages The checkout page is the last stop before a purchase is completed, making it an excellent place for your product recommendation system to work its magic. Offering upsells and cross-sells here can boost the final sale amount. Measuring the Success of Your Product Recommendation Strategy To ensure the effectiveness of your product recommendation system, it’s important to track key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics will help you understand how well your recommendations are performing and where improvements can be made. By monitoring these KPIs, you can assess the impact of your product recommendation system and make data-driven decisions to optimize its performance. Regular analysis and adjustments will help you continuously
Top 8 Magento B2B themes
When you start creating a Magento 2 website for your B2B eCommerce business, you need to install a Magento 2 B2B theme to publish your pages on the web. Selecting Magento themes can be overwhelming because it plays as the face of any company. However, thanks to built-in options, buying a Magento theme is not as expensive and distressing as it was several years ago. There are thousands of free and paid Magento eCommerce templates available on the market to choose from. To help you pick a great B2B website theme for your particular business needs, we’ll walk you through a list of the best Magento enterprise themes. Let’s explore what’s included here! Printshop Printshop is among the newest Magento wholesale themes with over 25 different layouts and an unlimited color system. It seems to be a great and perfect Magento 2 B2B theme for online store owners. Printshop not only brings a new breeze to your shop, but it also boosts your sales significantly and offers a great shopping experience for customers. Printshop has been created as a Magento B2B eCommerce solution for online stores. Moreover, PrintShop has a lot of powerful features to both impress and please customers. Market Market is a great theme and responsive to Magento B2B commerce. This Magento 2 B2B theme is fully customizable and suitable for any store such as book stores, furniture stores, clothing or watch shops, etc., especially for a multi-category store with multiple branches and products (Online market store, supermarket store, book store, cosmetics shop, luxury jewelry & accessories or mega stores). This Magento theme includes 18+ unique homepage layouts and responsiveness on all devices. It is a modern and young Magento 2 B2B theme that helps easily import data by one click, supports various headers and footers and allows changing colors of themes. Now it is easier for any merchants to improve the website by equipping them with nice images and texts to bring helpful information about your store. Sahara Sahara is the newest design of Plazathemes. This Magento 2 B2B theme was created as a mega store Magento B2B commerce solution for an online shop. This B2B theme includes 57+ pre-made layouts for your choice, multiple header types, and multiple layout options supported. This Magento theme meets on a variety of devices and is compatible with all types of stores such as toys, sports, flowers, etc. Black&White Black&White is one of the best-selling Magento themes for B2B developed by Meigeeteam, which is easy to customize colors with the power grid and various extensions. This Magento 2 B2B theme with great features and powerful design helps increase your revenues significantly and easily attract customers. Ves Fashion Ves Fashion is a simple and clear design by Venustheme. This Magento 2 B2B theme has impressive colors, textures and logical arrangements without code. This theme included several premium extensions such as Page Builder, Maga Menu, Testimonial, Blog, Shop With Brand to boost your website productivity to the highest. Ves Magento 2 B2B theme can be a perfect choice for establishing any kind of business or Magento B2B commerce website. It is suitable for various kinds of fashion boutiques, mobile shops, computer shops, electronics stores, etc. Everything Everything is a premium Magento 2 B2B theme that offers more than 50 homepage layouts. This will bring modern looks to your online store and improve customers’ satisfaction with powerful theme options. Everything from color to font can be customized easily. Thus, you can save a lot of time managing the Magento 2 B2B theme store. With Everything’s strong theme options, your Magento B2B eCommerce store will become unique and eye-catching. Gengar Gengar responsive Magento 2 B2B theme has 6 homepage layouts with a nice design and a neat layout. Its theme will give you a chance to make your online Magento B2B store fresh-looking and different from your competitors. Giftior Giftior has a lot of powerful modules that provide a great user experience for the Magento B2B website. It also has a beautiful homepage layout and a striking pattern that brings a good experience to customers when shopping. Conclusion There are numerous Magento eCommerce templates for B2B as the best choice for online wholesalers to choose from. We hope that those themes above will help you to determine the most suitable one for your online business.
How to choose the best magento 2 payment gateway
Buying things online has always been a concern for everyone due to a variety of reasons especially security during online payments. If you own an e-commerce business, a huge part of attracting and satisfying your customers will be providing them with a stable, reliable, secure, and smooth online checkout experience. This is the part that business owners need a payment method that can assure their customers. However, choosing a Magento 2 payment gateway has never been an easy task. So how can an e-business owner properly choose an appropriate one? Choose a gateway that will adapt growth on the Magento Platform Yes, the truth is that your business will grow constantly. So it is of paramount importance to pick out a type of payment gateway which can adapt to the development process of your company. Here, you may already know that Magento has two different editions: – The Magento Community Editions: This is designed for start-up or growing small E-commerce businesses. – The Magento Enterprise Editions: This is designed for both small and grown E-commerce businesses. Therefore, it is a clever move to choose a payment processor that supports both community and enterprise Magento editions. Enhanced user experience In this day and age, customers have the most power, in other words, they are everything. It is of paramount importance to e-businesses to have a friendly-user payment gateway, the payment details should be auto-fill to reduce your customer’s checkout stress. Secured transaction interface A question has evolved as the major topic of concern in today business: Is security a huge problem in the eCommerce world? Despite the popularity of E-commerce, many still worry about the setback of the payment transaction. Customers are afraid of giving out their own credit card information. The mission of an e-business is to protect its store from fraud (both criminal fraud and illegal chargebacks) during the checkout process. Online stores need a secure payment gateway that will prevent the business from fraud as well as from losing money. The payment gateway should be immune to all payment frauds. Global support Indeed, everybody wants his/her business to scale on a regular basis. Maybe your business is small today but in the future, it might expand exponentially; and that is the time you may need a payment gateway that can assist your customers all around the world. It is a feasible move to invest in a payment gateway that supports: multiple countries, currencies, card networks & payment methods that are popular outside your location. Use more than one Magento 2 payment gateway Most businesses lose money because they are unable to provide popular credit cards that their customers are using to make purchases online. According to statistics: Cardtronics Health of cash reported that 9 out of 10 people like having the ability to use a variety of payment methods when making a purchase. Therefore, if you want to increase your customer base and make more sales, use varieties of popular payment gateways on your Magento store. This can definitely improve your conversion rate for your store. Conclusion It is undeniable that the development of E-commerce has led to a shift in customer buying behavior. Everyone started buying things online; therefore store owners should prepare an online payment method that could minimize the risk of getting frauds.
4 BigCommerce security challenges you won’t meet again
Security challenges are not a strange issue of BigCommerce businesses nowadays. Those problems can cause detrimental impacts for any enterprise from finances, information systems to customer management. Therefore, our article today will list out 4 most popular security problems that a lot of BigCommerce stores have met. 4 Prevalent BigCommerce Security Issues Unreliable Privacy And Security The first challenge that a lot of eCommerce businesses encounter is unreliable privacy and weak security. Which causes the risks of counterfeit sites. The hackers can build the same websites as yours to lie to the customers. When your customers shop in that store, their information can be leaked; their computers can be hacked or they can be taken into your competitors’ stores. Therefore, it can negatively affect your store’s reputation. Moreover, if the hackers can attack your websites, they may steal a lot of crucial information. Those can be your customer data, company’s secrets and selling data. Seriously, if there is a leak of credit card information of customers, others can steal the money from their bank accounts. Bugs And Virus If your security protection is weak, the virus is likely to attack your computers and software. The hackers can put worms, viruses, malicious programs into your computer to slow down the processes, and steal information. Therefore, your business may lose money, customers, partners, and reputation. Moreover, if the viruses go to customers’ software, they can affect negatively. The repercussions can be deleting all the files, hijacking the systems, blocking data access or stealing customers’ private data. Complicated B2B Transactions It is undeniable that the B2B transactions need to stick to more requirements than the B2C ones; therefore, the B2B transactions are more complicated and difficult. If the customers face challenges, they will find support and they can get into the traps of the hackers or faults easily. The businesses should shorten the ordering process; reduce the complexity; get rid of unnecessary requirements to help the customers finish the B2B transaction smoothly. All the instructions need to be displayed and delivered transparently and coherently. Moreover, the businesses need to display the customer support contact on the page for customers to ask for help when they need it. Read more: Bigcommerce upsell Poor Customer Data Management Customer data management is also an essential task for an eCommerce business. The poor customer data management is the tasty prey of the hackers and your competitors; as other people can easily steal, delete and modify the data. Moreover, the underestimated data management also prevents the businesses from finding customers insights, evaluating selling performance, and planning for upcoming strategies. Therefore, businesses should invest in powerful data management systems to strengthen their data protection and prevent potential risks. Conclusion With our listing of prevailing security challenges above, we hope that you can pay more attention to your security protection and avoid making mistakes. Moreover, you should invest more in data management to reduce potential risks that we have mentioned as well.
