How do you choose the best eCommerce platform for your business?

opensource-blog

January 28, 2019

Like all things, marriage takes work. At a time when divorce rates are at their highest, new marriages are at an all-time low; for those who do get married, do they consider that they are actually signing a contract?

There are so many parallels between marriage and choosing a b2b commerce platform. Much like marriage, choosing a b2b ecommerce platform takes a few essential steps: research, compatibility and faith. Being one of the most important business decisions people can make, one wonders why so many businesses make a platform decision without seeing if it has the features needed to drive online growth. A bit like dating sites, we now have web agencies advertising that they have the best UK b2b ecommerce platform and, on the face of it, some companies are trusting and investing further in the wrong relationship, choosing instead to throw caution to the wind and hope for the best. To push this allegory further, choosing the right ecommerce platform should harken back to the olden days, where perhaps you’d take your new beau to meet the parents and extended family before committing.

eCommerce comparison

Why are you reading about marriage in an ecommerce blog? Give it some thought – initially a marriage forms the centre of a family, similarly an enterprise ecommerce solution is at the core of any business looking to increase sales and profit. It takes hard work, investment and nurturing but if you get it right, you reap the rewards. TrueCommerce Netalogue are aware of this having specialised in providing UK b2b solutions for over 15 years. The reason for this success is, according to TrueCommerce Netalogue themselves, easy: it’s down to the regular strategic reviews the company has with their long-term customers to ensure everyone has the same shared goals. Bill Gates once said ‘your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning’ and the point about customers being a source of learning couldn’t be truer. Netalogue work in partnership with key clients, companies like Commercial Office Supplies, listening not just to what they want but also what their customers want.

Partnership

How do you choose the best B2B ecommerce UK platform for your business? The answer is simple – you look for the right partner with the right product, rather than one that makes promises about what they might be able to do in the future to make you happy. Commercial, for example, have multiple sites, as a client they continuously feed into TrueCommerce Netalogue’s product roadmap to ensure that their customer experience is as seamless and efficient as possible; it is evident they have delivered results, with a 40 percent increase in revenue and winning the Queens Award for Enterprise two years in a row.

‘We have worked with TrueCommerce Netalogue strategically for the last decade since upgrading to the TrueCommerce Netalogue B2B platform after hitting limitations with our previous solution. TrueCommerce Netalogue are a key partner to our growth plans and work with us collaboratively when it comes to winning new business and improving our customers experience online.’

Paul Hutchings, IT and Business Services Manager comments on the strategic relationship

Commercial are leading in their sector and constantly out-perform competitors who, fortunately for them, chose the web agency or development route believing that as time passed it might get better. Like marriage, choosing a software partner is a huge decision and it will cost money, but that should lead to cost efficiencies, improved profits and a sales channel that will be the centre of your business. TrueCommerce Netalogue work closely with all of its customers and it is the feedback from the customers which, in turn, makes the product the best b2b ecommerce offering on the table.

Client feedback

Just like old fashioned face-to-face dating, TrueCommerce Netalogue will sit with you and listen to what you require from the relationship, committing to a fixed cost contract before you introduce them to your family of stakeholders. Don’t invest in promises, invest in a provider that is able to demonstrate its features before you sign on the dotted line; only then will you have a happy ever after.

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