The world economy has rarely seen a transformation as dramatic and rapid as the one brought on by the Internet. Within a few short decades, the general public has become fully accustomed to ordering products from their computer or phone and having them delivered to their doorstep within a few days. 

Inevitably, this shift has also greatly affected B2B fulfillment, as franchisees and retail store managers order materials from corporate partners. Here’s how Spectra helps clients offer B2B services that look and feel like the best of the B2C platforms out there today.

Fully Branded Online Storefronts

Spectra is much more than just a high quality fulfillment center where your organization can store materials before shipping them out to end users. One of our most valuable offerings for national corporations is the branded online storefront. With this solution, your company gets an online portal that looks and feels like a high quality e-commerce website. 

Especially when compared with previous methods, such as phone ordering or mailing in an order form, the online storefront is incredibly streamlined. It not only makes it easier for the end user to make their selections from the options available to them, but it also reduces errors that could result in incorrect deliveries. Perhaps most importantly, it’s also faster. Online orders can be processed immediately and shipped out right away.

High Expectations

It’s part of human nature that the more we get, the more we expect. That’s definitely been true with the increase in convenience, wide selection, and delivery speed in e-commerce. Today’s online customers expect a very high level of customer satisfaction, and that expectation carries through to B2B end users who order from a national provider. With the help of Spectra, you can meet and even exceed these expectations:

• Convenience. With end users already used to the typical user experience on an e-commerce website, there is very little onboarding or training required to get them up to speed on the processes for ordering marketing materials, seasonal products, and other items from you when they need them.
• Selection. Spectra’s system allows you to offer each of your end users a curated selection of the complete catalog of materials you have in stock. Not every retail location or franchisee needs access to the same list of items, and restricting access for each user helps them focus on what they need.
• Delivery speed. With orders placed immediately online, the Spectra team can quickly pick and pack the needed items from your inventory and get them out the door as soon as possible. This efficiency is particularly valuable when materials are seasonal in nature or are tied to limited-time special offers.

White Labeling

When end users access your online storefront, they don’t find a Spectra solution offering your products. Instead, the storefront is fully customized to your brand. There’s no confusion on the part of your end users about whether they are navigating a relationship with a third party before working with you. Each storefront is completely tailored to that client’s branding, color scheme, and other details. 

Integration With Your Organization

Perhaps the largest area of possible trouble when working with a third party fulfillment provider like Spectra is connecting the fulfillment provider’s systems with those that your organization already has in place. If it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how to get those systems to speak to each other, the result is delayed shipments, incorrect deliveries, and great frustration for both the client and their end users. 

With more than 20 years of experience and investment in very advanced online portal software systems, Spectra has proven that it has the ability to very quickly and seamlessly integrate the online storefront with the client’s own systems. Rather than groaning over having to figure out yet another process, your end users will experience great relief at how easy and familiar your new online ordering system is.

Individual Logins

One of the major advantages that Spectra clients get with their customized online storefronts is the ability to offer their end users tiered access to items based on their unique logins and passwords. This saves time for end users, as they don’t need to waste time scrolling through and considering items that are not applicable to their location or needs. It also reduces confusion caused when users order the wrong items and the order either needs to be corrected or materials need to be returned and the correct ones reordered.

By giving each end user an individual username and password, Spectra allows the client to manage access to its catalog of offerings. This streamlining makes the online ordering process even more intuitive for end users and encourages adoption even among those who might be reluctant to switch from an older ordering process that they are accustomed to.

Metrics

From the perspective of a national corporation, an online storefront solution from Spectra delivers another incredibly valuable benefit: detailed metrics that can be used in real time to increase efficiency. As users place orders through the storefront, the amount of data grows and gives the client more and more information on how, when, where, and in what amounts their end users are ordering different materials. This data can then be used by Spectra and the client to anticipate needs, stock materials in the right quantities, and give end users even more of the great service that they expect.

Revolutionize Your B2B Game

If you recognize that it’s time to make major upgrades to the way your national corporation gets materials to end users around the country, Spectra’s online storefront solution should be at the top of your list of considerations. The convenience, flexibility, and speed that this offering brings to your fulfillment operations could be one of the most powerful drivers of growth that your business has seen in a very long time.

Contact a Spectra representative to get more specific information on our online portals and how they can be applied to your organization’s needs.