Wondering if you’ve got the skills to help other entrepreneurs or companies thrive in areas that you happen to excel at? Then start an e-commerce site offering your business skills to other businesses.

In some ways, it’s no different than the old concept of smart adults who were matched up with kids whose parents could afford to pay smarter people to educate their kids. 

It’s a basic tutor-student transaction. Except today, much of it is done between businesses and entrepreneurs. Sometimes, they meet in person. Sometimes they exchange goods and services through online platforms. And there’s always Zoom, Google Meet, or old fashioned face-to-face coffee meetings.

 

What is a B2B Online Business? 

B2B (business to business) e-commerce is the online sale of goods or services between two or more businesses. For example, we are an example of a B2B e-commerce site (sometimes at least). 

We are happy to meet with companies in person, and we do. But we do the majority of our work providing website design, analytics, online ad management, and digital content creation for other companies. We deliver this content both in person, and sometimes by sending you reports or delivering digital content (like test websites). 

 

How Many B2B Online Businesses Are There? 

According to 2023 U.S. B2B e-commerce Report by Digital Commerce 360, online B2B sales, 20% of B2B sellers expect their business to generate ecommerce sales growth of at least 25% in 2023.

With the many benefits of a B2B e-commerce platform, including remote work and flexibility,  you should think about what services you’re currently handling, like website design and analytics, that a third party vendor, like us, could handle better.

You can also think about what services you can offer to another business in your industry that they themselves aren’t ready to handle on their own. It’s all about focusing time, energy and money on the areas you already excel in. Here are ten ways to think about why B2B is better than DIY. 

 

SCALABILITY

One of the greatest benefits of B2B e-commerce is the ability to scale your company. Your customers need goods, services and content that you can’t always handle on your own. A business can handle some of the work for you. 

You can also outsource some of your business tasks, like website maintenance, to experts so you can focus on growing your sales. Let other businesses handle payroll, inventory, website content, social media management and more. Focus on what you do best. 

For example, we often manage the Google Ad campaigns of companies who don’t “get” why Google Ads matter, or understand how to best maximize the use of Google Ad budgets. 

 

INCREASED SALES

Let’s be realistic. We all want to make more money. Marketing yourself as a B2B expert is a smart side hustle in addition to your regular gig. 

It leads to increased sales for your main business because those interested in using your expertise will want to try out your main business to make sure you’re legit. 

Also, anyone who hires you to fulfill a need for their own business will pay you.

Here’s an example. If you have years of experience running a local daycare, you know all of the state, city and federal laws related to providing a safe and legal business. You can maintain your daycare, while offering your expertise on the side through a website – to aspiring daycare owners.

Fabric businesses sell materials to clothing makers. Stores buy shelves from storage and inventory display companies. Security companies sell video cameras to retail stores and commercial properties. 

You’re an online consultant, and perhaps you’d be willing to offer face to face services too.

Here’s another example. One we know all about. 

At SEO Design Chicago, We offer website development, SEO, analytics, and many other digital marketing services to other businesses.

IMPROVE COSTS

AI, especially when it comes to content generation, often causes more problems than it solves. But AI is revolutionizing business processes. No modern business should be manually handling payroll, inventory and other mundane tasks. It’s not “quaint” to handle these things on your own. It’s the number one, surefast way, for small businesses to lose out to big businesses like Walmart and Amazon.

Automated services don’t involve robots and driverless cars. That’s actually still far off into the future. Automated B2B services include hand held scanners for barcodes and simple software to generate direct deposits. 

We love the human touch. But technology is good for some things. 

 

BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

B2B websites have self-serve options available 24/7 that allow other businesses to track their contracts and orders without ever having to talk to customer service teams. For example, some B2B sites have a client login. We also offer a chatbot if you have a more complex question, or if we want to make sure we respond to someone inquiring about our services when we’re at home, maintaining a healthy work-life balance.  B2B websites ensure customers have a truly customer centric experience on their own time.

 

INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY 

You are your most trusted lieutenant right? So why are you wasting your trust and time on yourself to handle things like payroll? A B2B service can provide safety and security of a human being – the human you trust the most! Yourself!

Also, ask yourself what you want to spend your time on. You have a limited amount of time on this planet. Do you want to spend it in your area of speciality? Or do you want to spend hours of our day keeping up to date with how Google is changing its algorithms?

If you do want to learn something new, then by all means, start off each day reading Google News Alerts about Google’s algorithm and how it affects search engine results pages (SERP). But if you’d rather spend your time on Earth focusing on issues that you’re passionate about, you can contract out the tech stuff to a B2B like us at SEO Design Chicago.

We can do as much, or as little, work for you as you want. We work with your timeframe and your budget. We have tons of satisfied customers and their case studies show you the multitude of ways we help other businesses.

We love being a business that helps businesses. That’s what B2B is really about. 

One Last Thing: Don’t Confuse B2B with B2C

B2C and B2B are two forms of commerce. Both the B2B and B2C commercial transaction  processes begin with a need for a product or service. While they are similar in some ways, such as that both the B2B and B2C buying processes begin with the need for a service or product. However, they are fundamentally different. 

In the traditional sense, B2C could refer to a person walking down a block and choosing one restaurant over another. It’s business to consumer/

B2B is for “trade only” professionals. Think of a recent trade conference you went to. Think of the booths that were set up to market their products. They are businesses. You are a business.

That’s B2B. 

 

In another blog post, we details what separates a B2B from a B2C. Factors include:

• Speed of transactions
• Price points (B2B is cheaper)
• Quality of consumer to seller relationship (we both have a stake in making our relationship work)

Reach out to us to chat soon. There’s a unchallenged belief in our society that technology is simple. But it is and it isn’t. Just because it’s fast and easy doesn’t mean you’re doing things intelligently. We can make sure you make the best use of your time, energy, and dollars.