Tackling B2B Challenges: Workshop with Jamersan and Tavano Team at Make It Big 2022

Gone are the days of cold calling, offline marketing activities and paper-based, manual transactions. Forrester projects that by 2023, 17% of U.S. B2B sales will be generated digitally (up from 13% in 2019) valuing an estimated $1.8 trillion.

Just as the B2C world is constantly innovating and digitizing, customers seek these same experiences from B2B sellers — and grow increasingly impatient with those that don’t provide them.

However, it’s no surprise that today’s B2B businesses have different needs and requirements than their B2C counterparts — which is why at this year’s Make it Big conference, we wanted to dive into strategies and tackle the unique challenges that B2B brands face in today’s wave of digital innovation — with BigCommerce agency partners Jamersan and Tavano Team.

Jamersan and Tavano Team’s Key Takeaways at Make It Big 2022

At BigCommerce’s 2022 Make it Big Conference, Shelley Kilpatrick, Manager of Content Marketing at BigCommerce, sat down with TJ Gamble, CEO and Founder of Jamersan, and Diego Praderi, Growth and Innovation Partner at Tavano Team, to discuss how B2B brands can overcome unique challenges in today’s wave of digital innovation.

Here are a few key takeaways from this session:

Shelley Kilpatrick: What are the challenges and limitations of legacy and open-source ecommerce technologies?

TJ Gamble: “The problem with legacy and open-source technologies is that they really came about during a time when ecommerce was really technology driven. We were still figuring it out, and having an open-source platform was a strong advantage for you, because you never really knew what kind of functionality you were going to have to provide.

“But nowadays, when there are great SaaS options available, you may not need that flexibility of open source, and not having to go that route actually saves you a lot on costs. You don’t have those additional costs of maintenance. You don’t have the technical debt of a lot of custom code. And you don’t have that decreased technical agility to where you have to constantly be upgrading something.”

SK: Can you give some insight into the challenge of upgrading an outdated B2B user experience?

TG: “You want to keep it simple, right? It should not be stressful for customers to use your website. If that’s the case, they’re going to use a competitor or they’re going to continue to pick up the phone and call and use a manual process. 

“You definitely want to build your site to where there are no surprises for your customer. They should understand every single step before they click on it. Make sure you’re also speaking in their language. Understand the terms that they’re trying to use — are they using SKU codes or are they using some other term to search for products in your site. Make sure you’re communicating with them on their level. This goes a long way toward building that trust and relationship with your customer base.”

SK: What are your predictions for the future of B2B ecommerce?

Diego Praderi: “B2C is definitely driving ecommerce expectations, in the sense of what you’re providing to a B2B customer. The same person that’s going to give you the $200,000 order is the one that’s giving a ‘like’ on a cat video on TikTok. It’s the same person that buys everything for their kids and for themselves on a B2C site. They’re very immersed in everything that’s driven by the digital economy right now. 

“Start seeing the trends that are happening in B2C and model it to B2B. Let’s start seeing who’s leading — and that’s B2C — and let’s start understanding what’s working and let’s start modeling. Let’s start optimizing it in our B2B sites.” 

The Final Word

If you missed this session with TJ Gamble and Diego Praderi or would like to watch it again, now you can! Register for free today for easy access to all Make it Big sessions, now available on-demand through the end of the year. 

Don’t forget to share your favorite Make it Big moments with us on social with #MakeitBigConf, and tag us @BigCommerce.