Last Updated on October 28, 2022 by Admin
Building materials companies have been slow to adopt eCommerce, but they are poised for growth through a digital strategy. Here’s what you need to know about building materials eCommerce.
Table of Contents
Types of eCommerce
eCommerce can be segmented into B2B, B2C, and C2B.
- Business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce is when a business sells products or services directly to other companies. It’s often used by large manufacturers and wholesalers who need to sell their products in bulk for the best price possible.
- Business-to-consumer (B2C) eCommerce is when a company sells its products directly to the consumer via an online store or marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, or Alibaba. Consumers might not be able to get the same prices as they would if they bought from a local retailer, but it can be convenient for those who don’t live near one of these stores or want access to niche items that might not be available locally at all times.
How important is eCommerce to the building materials and construction industry?
In a nutshell, eCommerce is an opportunity for everyone in the building materials and construction industry.
For customers: Online shopping is a convenient way to compare prices, find products and services, and get recommendations from trusted peers. It’s also more accessible than ever to shop online before making a purchase. This can save you time and money by allowing you to avoid driving around town or waiting in line at retail stores—and then having to return items if they don’t fit right or are not as advertised.
The benefits of eCommerce for the construction and building materials industry
- You can reach a global audience
- You can get new customers
- You can reach new markets
- You can reach new buyers
eCommerce best practices for the building materials and construction industry
To ensure that your business stands out from the crowd and delivers an experience that keeps customers coming back, you’ll want to follow these best practices:
- Be consistent in your branding across all platforms. It sounds obvious, but consistency is critical to building trust with your audience. Whether they’re browsing your website or scrolling through social media posts, they should be able to recognize and associate with the same company image.
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. As of July 2019, more than half of US digital traffic came from mobile devices (57%), according to Statista stats cited by Forbes writer Will Leshner in his article “10 Tips for Building an Ecommerce Site That Works On Mobile Devices.” Visitors who visit a poorly designed site will likely abandon their shopping carts before completing an order—or, even worse, become frustrated enough not to return altogether.
What are the challenges of eCommerce for the building materials and construction industry?
eCommerce is a new channel for the building materials and construction industry.
Companies must significantly shift their business models and marketing strategies from brick-and-mortar stores to online sales.
This shift can be challenging for many companies because their core competencies are not strengths in eCommerce—they’re used to selling on their own websites but haven’t necessarily mastered creating an eCommerce site on Amazon or another platform.
It’s also tricky because building materials companies may not have all the resources they need (such as shipping knowledge) or access to data analysis tools that would help improve their performance on Amazon over time.
How to get started with eCommerce for the building materials and construction industry
- Define your target audience.
- Define your product offerings and service offerings.
- Define your brand in terms of what it is and how you want to be perceived by the consumer.
- Develop a marketing strategy for eCommerce that considers what you have learned about your target audience and their needs, wants, and desires.
- Come up with a pricing strategy for the products and services you are selling online to ensure that these items are competitively priced compared to those sold by other companies in the building material industry space (if there are any).
- Develop sales strategies that will allow potential customers who visit your website from search engines like Google or Bing will be able to find whatever product/service they’re looking for easily on this site, so they don’t need any additional effort other than clicking on links which lead directly towards purchasing options once they find what they want most.
How to pick an eCommerce platform for selling building materials online
Selecting the right platform for your business can be challenging. There are many different eCommerce software options, each offering its own features and benefits.
However, choosing a good eCommerce platform is extremely important because it will help you optimize your entire business operations. In this section, we’ll discuss how to choose an eCommerce solution that meets your needs and goals to ensure that your investment in eCommerce pays off.
The first thing to consider when choosing an online store builder is the ease of use. You want something intuitive enough that anyone in your company could manage it on their own—from salespeople to IT staff to customer support reps—without needing extensive training or ongoing support from outside vendors.
Your customer base should also find it easy to navigate the site and make purchases quickly without feeling overwhelmed by too many choices or options they don’t understand well enough yet (or ever).
Choosing an open source solution like OroCommerce makes sense here since there are several plugins available through third parties specifically designed for B2B customers while also offering lots of customization opportunities.
Building materials companies are poised for growth through eCommerce, but they need to be sure their strategies are sound.
There are a lot of building materials companies that are ready to make the leap into eCommerce. If you’re one of them, you’re probably looking for ways to grow your business. But before you dive headlong into an eCommerce strategy, it helps to think about what exactly you want from this sales method.
If your goal is simply more sales (and who doesn’t want more sales?), then perhaps it’s worth considering the benefits of eCommerce over brick-and-mortar stores. The obvious advantage is that no employees or real estate costs mean higher profit margins and fewer headaches for management teams that already have their hands full trying to keep up with the demand for physical stores. And if you don’t need as much inventory on hand as in-person retail requires, eCommerce can also help reduce storage costs.
Of course, these savings come at a cost—the loss of tangible human interaction with customers—but they might not be all bad news since research suggests people prefer online shopping anyway because they feel less rushed while browsing products online compared with rushing through store shelves trying not to get trampled by other shoppers (or feeling pressured by sales associates).
To summarize
eCommerce is a rapidly growing channel for the building materials industry, and it’s poised to play a crucial role in the future of this industry. It can help you reach new customers and sell more products online, which can be especially beneficial.
