Benefits of eCommerce for Manufacturing

25 Jul 2022

Mike Patel

eCommerce in manufacturing reflects a paradigm shift from pure transactions to experience-driven commerce. Purchasing parts or products online is nothing new but many of the legacy systems bringing products online are unwieldy. However, manufacturers that leverage modern B2B eCommerce solutions can turn this often complicated process into engaging experiences that satisfy their modern customers.

How eCommerce is Changing the Game for Manufacturers

As traditional product-focused companies are becoming more customer-centric, manufacturers are looking for digital solutions that facilitate the change. eCommerce comes with many benefits: improving the accuracy of orders, 24/7 access to order history and account management, and more efficient digital processes, among many others.

What distinguishes eCommerce over other digital solutions is its potential to transform the nature of the manufacturing industry. eCommerce in manufacturing is not simply another digital tool for businesses to add, rather it is a platform that enables manufacturers to move away from their traditional business models and embrace a digitally connected ecosystem of customers, internal teams, data, and systems that they manage through a single platform.

It’s a natural thing to wonder. Let’s take a look at a few of the incredible benefits of eCommerce for Manufacturing to understand.

Benefits of eCommerce for Manufacturing:

Cut Costs by Automating your Business

Going digital is the way forward for any business looking to save money and time.

The cost of order processing, manual entry errors, and customer support are all factors that can easily eat away at your bottom line over time. However, with cutting-edge technologies including eCommerce platforms like Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce, you might just be able to find a silver lining in this dark cloud!

1) Reduced Order Processing Costs

Order processing costs are often overlooked; however, with eCommerce opening up new revenue streams for both B2B and B2C, it has become easier to remove the hidden costs of order processing by automating the associated business processes.

Sales order automation eliminates the extra steps involved in processing. It minimizes the order processing costs by up to 80% by reducing the number of human efforts needed to process an order. Reduced operational costs are a great way to immediately boost a company’s profitability.

2) Fewer Order Errors

Businesses incur huge costs due to human errors. This includes costs not only pertaining to accounting but this can be expensive should there arise any errors in activities related to sales, marketing, promotions, advertising or operations. Digital transformation like an eCommerce store can reduce such errors by up to 90%.

3) Reduced Printing Costs

Every distributor incurs a huge cost to process each customer order which includes printing, collecting, distributing, and manually re-keying order data. These costs, when accumulated, range anywhere from $30 – $60 for a single email or fax order. Furthermore, the added costs of filing and storing documents, and the painstaking process of locating originals to

responding to customer inquiries adds up to increasing the printing and other overhead costs.

4) Fewer Support Calls

It takes a lot of time and effort to stay on top of order volumes, especially in the peak season. And, most of the Customer Service Representatives at a manufacturing company are overwhelmed processing orders. Purchase orders need to be processed in the system to become sales orders, however, this manual processing offers little value to your customers and it’s certainly not the best use of your employees’ precious time.

Automating the processes reduces the number of calls for manual order processing and helps optimize the time for other fruitful activities.

Increase Revenue with an Online Sales Format

Speed and convenience equal higher satisfaction, in turn motivating customers to spend more.

The convenience of online shopping has led consumers to be more satisfied with their purchases, which in turn motivates them to higher spending. Businesses can take advantage of using digital commerce techniques that will enable the sales team to work efficiently while growing revenue at an impressive rate!

1) Better Customer Retention

Customer service can be enjoyable. However, it’s extremely tiring, and beyond that, it eats up all of your valuable time as a person trying to grow your business. Fortunately, since customers no longer have to rely on your help to order your products or services, thanks to online shopping at their convenience, you’re free to focus on improving your products/services and the actual web experience.

But the automated ordering doesn’t stop the efficiency train there. The automated ordering system eliminates the need to reconfigure any data—basically reducing the possibility of a boatload of errors to near zero.

2) Increased Customer Spending

The world is riding a continuous wave of technological development, and even elders have begun taking advantage of online shopping. So, it’s time to take advantage.

Creating a B2B eCommerce website that has multiple pages casts a much wider net in the world than a store on the main street ever could. After all, a very small percentage of your target audience is walking the street looking for their product—instead, they’re online, skimming through websites and offers from multiple companies. And it’s up to you to meet them there to show what you have to offer.

3) Expands your Customer Base

eCommerce for manufacturing gives businesses the ability to grow and rapidly scale with ease. That will further allow you to meet your customer’s needs and the demands of your given market whenever a change is due. Or even if you just feel like making one.

You can also adopt some great extensive B2B eCommerce solutions that will enable you to change your tired existing technology and marketing capabilities, ultimately—improving many facets of your business.

You’re casting a much wider net with the right B2B eCommerce platform. Consequently, you’ll undoubtedly give your brand the perfect opportunity for a significant growth spurt both globally and locally.

4) Improved Sales Team Productivity

There are several ways that an optimized B2B eCommerce website can quickly lead to higher sales. One of the easiest ways to set yourself up for higher sales in the future is to implement a fast, automated upsell and cross-sell program into your website. That can give your new customers tons of relevant recommendations, which keeps them on your website longer and tempts them to purchase even more products/services.

Business Impact of eCommerce on Manufacturing

eCommerce isn’t only about buying and selling online. It’s not just about engaging customers online either. eCommerce should be a business tool and should allow your organization to benefit from larger digital transformation and business evolution initiatives.

For many manufacturers who have already invested in eCommerce strategically, this has proven true:

39% of manufacturers report overall revenue growth as a benefit of eCommerce. Over one-third of manufacturers say that eCommerce improved customer experience 38% of manufacturers report that eCommerce improved their business efficiency.

Becoming A Customer-Focused Organization

Moving from being a product-centered business to a customer-centric one is feasible and beneficial using an eCommerce platform. However, simply adding an eCommerce solution to an existing technology stack is not the end-all solution. If implemented successfully alongside a detailed strategy, an eCommerce platform is not just another way to sell but a transformative solution that solves traditional B2B challenges and elevates manufacturers to becoming customer-driven businesses that will ultimately drive long-term success.

Mike Patel

Mike Patel is a digital marketing enthusiast, innovator and President of a leading Digital and E-commerce Development Agency in Dallas, Texas. Mike holds a BS, Computer Science degree from Wayne State University and is a key player in the E-commerce development and digital marketing industry since 2004. The scope of technology in his extensive experience of more than 15 years ranges from Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click) management, E-commerce SEO, Google Shopping Ads and more.