The online storefront is definitely one of the most valuable services that Spectra offers to fulfillment clients. This digital tool, which many of our prospective clients don’t realize they even need at first, has the ability to take their fulfillment process from being a nuisance to being one of their company’s most effective growth drivers.

Although this isn’t exactly a case study, it is a walk-through of a typical storefront solution that we offer for fulfillment clients of various kinds. As you’ll see, the specifics of a Spectra online storefront are incredibly flexible, allowing our team to create a public-facing and/or B2B portal that seamlessly presents your organization’s offerings for purchase.

For the Client: Inventory Visibility

Once the Spectra team has taken a new client through the online storefront setup process, in coordination with launching a new fulfillment relationship, the client enjoys access to a digital tool that, in itself, has the ability to revolutionize the way the organization thinks about capital allocation and measuring customer demand. 

Because the Spectra online storefront is fully integrated with the fulfillment processes in our facility, the client-facing area of the application displays up-to-date metrics about how stock is moving into and out of the warehouse. In the short term, this allows the client to quickly note and respond to increases in demand for different SKUs, identify items that suddenly aren’t selling as expected, and monitor how experimental products or special offers are performing.

In the long term, these metrics add up to form valuable sources of data that the organization can use to make larger decisions. It’s easy for managers to manipulate data and download reports from the Spectra online portal, then present the information to decision makers. And with Spectra’s high level of commitment to accuracy and advanced inventory management practices, the client can enjoy confidence that reports are reliable.

For the B2C Customer: Top Quality UX

If the client needs to offer its products to the public, Spectra’s online storefront is the perfect venue. Customers have very high, and sometimes unreasonably high, expectations for their user experience when ordering from an e-commerce company. While your startup or specialized e-commerce business doesn’t have the resources of Amazon or Walmart, you can still present a great-looking, fully branded online storefront that customers find easy and pleasant to use.

For the B2B Customer: Simplicity and Speed

The priorities for the B2B customer are slightly different than those of the B2B shopper. In most cases, a B2B customer, such as a franchisee or a retail partner, is interested in finding the products offered by your organization that will help them promote their own business most effectively. Spectra’s online storefront system offers a number of customization tools that help B2B customers more efficiently review their options and choose the ones that will best serve them.

By giving each B2B end user their own unique username and password, Spectra creates the ability to exclude certain SKUs from the catalog that any given B2B customer sees on the storefront. Many franchisors and national manufacturers need to offer different sets of materials to different B2B customers based on their membership tier level, size, or location. This customization lets the client set these parameters for different customers and simplify their ordering experience.

B2B and B2C Ordering All In One

When the name of the game is simplicity, it may seem that creating an online storefront with both B2C and B2B capabilities would introduce insurmountable complications. There are many important differences between these two types of relationships, and it may seem to most organizations that the best approach is to operate two different storefronts, one that is public-facing and one for B2B activities.

With Spectra, however, our team has the expertise in house to create a single online storefront that offers both B2B and B2C sales. The customer from the public that logs onto the website sees the public facing version of the client’s offerings, while the B2B customer that logs on using their unique username and password sees the set of products and purchasing options appropriate for their needs.

Payment options can be set for both the B2B and B2C versions of the storefront as well, whether the client wants to offer Paypal, Stripe, or other specialized payment methods in addition to standard credit cards.

Customer Support After the Sale

Even with the best user experience in place and even with an expert team like Spectra handling an online storefront, there will be the inevitable need for customer support following some sales. Customers from the public may purchase the wrong products by mistake, and B2B customers may overestimate how many items they will need for a promotional event. Returns, replacements, and other “reverse logistics” topics can become a drag on an organization’s resources and hurt their reputation with customers if they are not handled in an expert manner.

As part of the online storefront system, Spectra works with the client to establish return, replacement, and refund policies for both B2B and B2C customers as needed. Once those policies are in place, Spectra handles requests from customers according to those policies, relieving the client of the burden of dealing with these routine issues.

Spectra can field customer service calls and communicate with the client about more complicated issues, advising on solutions and helping them not only resolve the immediate need, but also establish protocols for similar situations in the future.

More About Online Storefronts

Obtaining a powerful, secure, and flexible online storefront for your organization is as easy as launching a fulfillment partnership with Spectra. Give your customers the user experience they expect, while making it easier than ever before to collect and use metrics to improve your organization’s performance. 

Ready to learn about how a fully customized online storefront can connect you with your customers in an unprecedented way? Set up a chat with Spectra and find out more details about this element of our world-class slate of fulfillment services.