When it comes to B2B sales, Amazon Business has become a juggernaut. With more than six million active customers generating approximately $35 billion in B2B sales, Amazon Business is the Ecommerce giant’s fastest growing business unit. And it’s only expected to continue to get bigger.
Clearly, more and more business buyers are turning to Amazon to address their procurement needs. With its vast selection and competitive pricing, Amazon is vastly outpacing traditional distributors.
That said, not all B2B manufacturers are doing everything they can to fully capitalize on Amazon as a B2B platform. Many of them simply overlook Amazon Business as a sales channel; they focus on selling on Amazon through the more traditional wholesale model known as Vendor Central (or 1P), if they’re selling on Amazon at all.
Sadly, they’re leaving a lot of revenue on the table. To truly succeed on Amazon, it’s essential to understand and utilize all the various tools Amazon provides only for business customers. Let’s take a closer look at some of these features and discuss how you can use them to grow your B2B sales on the world’s largest marketplace.
B2B Buying Has Evolved
First, it’s important to acknowledge that the mindset of the typical B2B procurement officer has changed. Today’s buyers are far more digitally savvy than ever, with approximately 70 percent preferring to engage vendors through digital channels. In fact, according to one study, nearly 60 percent of all B2B buying is now conducted online. What’s more, the pandemic severely deteriorated brand loyalty, with the vast majority of them changing suppliers about one year after the first lock downs. Convenience, price, speed of delivery—these all are now as important to buyers as brand, if not more.
What’s more, with inflation on the rise, B2B buyers are under increasing pressure to reduce costs. At the same time, they still need to manage a complex workflow that likely requires approvals, accounting integration, and detailed analytics.
All of this is to point out that not only has the B2B buying environment changed, but that Amazon has developed a suite of tools aimed at satisfying the shifting needs of B2B buyers. If you’re a B2B manufacturer selling on Amazon, you simply can’t afford to overlook these tools.
Bulk and Tiered Pricing Discounts
Amazon Business enables sellers to offer quantity discounts on eligible products. And it enables sellers to offer bulk purchase options to buyers who need to purchase large quantities of a product. Tiered pricing automatically lowers the per-unit price as the total order value increases. This enables business buyers to save significantly, especially on large orders; it also enables sellers to sell through Amazon in a way that’s similar to traditional wholesale.
The thing is that these features only kick in when purchasing products through an Amazon Business account. In other words, bulk discounts are only offered to B2B buyers, which means products must be listed in Amazon Business.
Amazon Business Prime
You’re probably family with Amazon Prime, the most popular consumer-oriented loyalty program in the world that offers free, next-day (or even same-day) shipping and a host of other benefits.
Amazon recognized how essential Prime is to their business, and as a result created Business Prime. Like its consumer-facing counterpart, Amazon Business Prime provides all the benefits of regular Prime along with additional features designed specifically for business users. Free one- and two-day shipping is included on eligible items. Business Prime also unlocks consolidated shipping, survey and analytics tools, 90-day business credit, and a number of other services designed for business buyers.
With these types of benefits for buyers, it’s more important than ever to have your products become Prime Eligible. Not only will you be able to get your products into customers’ hands faster, you’ll be creating a better shopping experience overall, which can ultimately result in repeat business.
User Roles and Permissions
Amazon recognizes that many businesses don’t make all their purchases through a single buyer. To help accommodate different types of buyers, Amazon allows procurement officers to configure user roles and permissions within Amazon Business. Roles like purchaser, approver, and report viewer accommodate the needs of larger organizations.
Depending on their role, users can have access to purchase history, manage payment methods, create purchase orders, or view certain reports. They can also be restricted to making purchases based on product category, making it easier to enforce procurement policies. Administrators can implement purchase approval workflows based on the user’s role.
This allows sellers to better reach more buyers within a single B2B organization.
Spend Visibility and Controls
Managing spend is one of the top priorities for today’s B2B procurement officers. Amazon Business has created tools that allow administrators to set spending limits and payment approvals by user.
What’s more, sophisticated analytics provide visibility into organization-wide expenditures, making it easier for organizations to understand procurement’s impact on revenues and profitability. This level of spend management makes it far easier to balance the requirements of finance, accounting, and compliance departments.
Purchase Analytics
Amazon Business offers a suite of reporting tools to track spending across your organization. Reporting categories include orders, returns, sellers, shipments, refunds, saved lists, and more. Data can be filtered by date range, product category, or user. Basic analytics are available at no additional charge while advanced reporting features are part of Business Prime.
With all these tools at a B2B buyer’s disposal, is it any wonder why so many companies are spending more procurement dollars on Amazon? Today’s world is changing fast, and B2B manufacturers need to adjust their go-to market strategies faster in order to keep up.
If you’re finding it challenging to sell products on Amazon, we can help. Contact us to get a FREE Amazon assessment and learn the best approach for leveraging Amazon’s B2B tools to grow your bottom line.