How to Choose the Best B2C Software for Your E-Commerce Business [Expert Advice]

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The explosion of the Internet, dating back to the late 1990s, has fueled the online marketplace like never before. Today, the e-commerce landscape continues to evolve rapidly, with global retail e-commerce sales expected to exceed $8 trillion by 2027, accounting for more than 20% of total global retail sales.

For brands that want to create lasting and meaningful relationships with their niche audience within the consumer market, execution of B2C e-commerce strategies that create relevance, resonance, and reach depend directly on the B2C software being used to create complex, multifaceted customer experiences.

Definition: B2C e-commerce is the transaction of goods or services within the digital sphere, between an online business and an end consumer. B2C e-commerce offers benefits for both businesses — scale, simplicity, and ease — and for consumers — convenience, choice, and an array of customization possibilities — which has made the e-commerce industry one of the quickest growing areas within the modern economy.

What are the Key Features of a B2C E-Commerce Software?

To meet today’s customer expectations and outpace the competition, your e-commerce software should address every stage of the shopping journey—from the first click to the final checkout and everything in between. With the right features, you can transform every interaction into an opportunity to delight your customers and drive growth.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Imagine knowing what your customers want – before they even ask. That’s the power of a fully-integrated CRM system. By centralizing your customer, sales and product data, a CRM system will provide actionable insights into customer preferences, helping you to deliver personalized experiences that build loyalty and drive sales. 

An integrated CRM works seamlessly with your e-commerce platform to automate crucial workflows like abandoned cart reminders or personalized post-purchase thank-you notes. It also equips your customer service team with real-time access to order histories and preferences, empowering them to provide fast, personalized support.

Marketing automation

B2C e-commerce thrives on timely and relevant communication, and omnichannel marketing automation platforms like SAP Emarsys help businesses deliver it at scale. Your chosen e-commerce software should help you:

  • Automate welcome sequences, abandoned cart emails, and re-engagement campaigns to increase conversions.
  • Use AI-driven predictive models to send personalized offers at the right time.
  • Save time while delivering consistent, high-quality messaging across channels.

By automating email campaigns, SMS alerts, push notifications, and more, you can stay connected with customers at every stage of their journey without manual effort.

1:1 personalization and dynamic content

Your customers demand relevant, personalized experiences, and the right B2C e-commerce software can help you deliver upon those expectations, with features including:

  • Dynamic product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history.
  • Personalization of marketing campaigns based on customer preferences, behaviors, and location.
  • Increased engagement and loyalty through relevant, customized experiences.

Omnichannel marketing platforms like SAP Emarsys use advanced AI to personalize everything from email subject lines to the very content your customers see on your website. 

Analytics & reporting tools

Data is the backbone of your e-commerce marketing success. Your chosen e-commerce software needs to have comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities that help you:

  • Gain actionable insights to optimize future campaigns
  • Use data to segment customers and identify high-value groups
  • Track ROI from marketing campaigns to demonstrate the impact of your efforts

With analytics capabilities covered, you’ll have the data to know what worked before, and the insight to know what will work next.

Omnichannel integration

Your customers don’t just shop across one channel – from in-store to app to website, they’ll engage with your brand across many channels during their purchasing journey. Your chosen e-commerce software should help you manage campaigns and automations seamlessly across those channels. Top-tier omnichannel marketing platforms will empower your marketing team to:

  • Create a unified experience across all customer touchpoints.
  • Manage multiple channels from one platform to ensure alignment and efficiency.
  • Improve customer satisfaction by delivering consistent and cohesive experiences.

Platforms like SAP Emarsys excel at enabling omnichannel orchestration, ensuring consistent messaging wherever your customers interact.

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► Website Marketing. Use your website as a strategic marketing channel to collect emails and drive revenue in new ways that go beyond your product pages.

  • Entrance and Exit Overlays. Give exiting web visitors one last chance to convert with an attractive discount, and greet newcomers with the same.
  • Embedded Widgets. Show personalized content and discounts most likely to resonate with individuals in widgets across web pages.

Personalized Product Recommendations. Differentiate recommendations based on who each person is and what they’ve bought before.

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Once you know what kinds of campaigns you want to run and which channels your audience spends most time on, you can begin to extrapolate further to ask more pressing questions about data, new-age technologies (like AI and machine learning), and the mechanics of how personalization works. 

The ultimate intent should be to tie it all back to your strategy, not the tech itself. So, with these common channels and programs in mind, what else should you consider?

How to Choose the Best B2C Software for Your E-Commerce Business

There are several key considerations, questions, and features to make sure you take into account when selecting B2C software, and which will help guide you toward the best option. Below, we highlight a few of the most important.

Articulate your strategy — what are you trying to achieve and what phase is your organization in?

When selecting the best B2C software, begin with the overarching customer experience and revenue growth objectives that you want to achieve. Then find a solution that can help bring those to fruition. 

Which channels are customers using to interact with my company when online?

Today’s B2C e-commerce teams must deliver communications via the channel that customers want to engage through, with the right messages in each channel. Since most of today’s consumers are extremely digital-savvy, marketing platforms must enable you to deliver content across a wide range of channels and devices.

Ask yourself, can you communicate with consumers through these channels? More importantly, can it be done with a single piece of B2C software? Ideally, you’ll want to centralize all of your work within as few tools as possible to still meet your goals.

How will this new B2C marketing software handle the types of data and information we want to access?

For any B2C marketing organization, data is the most valuable asset in your arsenal. When it comes to researching and identifying new solutions, don’t shy away from asking explicit questions about how your customer/historical/transactional data will be collected, aggregated, and analyzed from an end-user perspective.

You know your data better than anyone. How will that data be gathered from a slew of sources and housed in a new platform? How will practitioners access and utilize this data? 

Does my B2C marketing platform consolidate customer data from a range of channels and analyze that data to self-learn?

With all the new channels and devices available to today’s consumers, most e-commerce teams need a way to wade through the noise and automate communications. Self-learning technology is the answer. It’s also where data comes in.

B2C software should be able to compile and analyze large amounts of consumer data from multiple channels, creating a 360-degree picture of customers on an individual level. Only the most advanced B2C software can truly (many claim to be able to; few actually can) turn that data into insights, “self-learn,” and make decisions about the next-best option.

What actionable insights will my B2C software provide me about buyer behavior and lifecycle stages that I can start implementing today?

The right B2C marketing software can give your team a competitive advantage by uncovering hidden consumer insights. This allows you to predict individual behaviors, trends, and propensities within your customer base, as well as broader industry tendencies. The key is to ask the right questions and fine-tune the parameters of your software to align with your specific goals—a capability that few B2C software systems offer.

While many e-commerce solutions offer storage and access to impressive data sets, it’s essential to have a plan of action to leverage these numbers effectively. Comprehensive B2C marketing platforms not only enable you to understand your customer data but also empower you to make data-driven decisions to optimize current campaigns and adjust your overall strategy.

Final Thoughts

If your B2C e-commerce team is looking for the best software to match your specific needs, start with a broad set of options, and then narrow them down based on specifics about what you need, including:

  • Data storage and accessibility. Will you be able to draw actionable insights from your most prized possession, your hard-earned customer data?
  • Linking objectives to strategies to tactics. Can you create an approach that will help you drive large-scale change in accordance with organizational priorities?
  • Features and functionality. Will the platform enable execution of specific tactics that will help you meet your goals?
  • Smart segmentation and personalization. Will you have the ability to predict what customers want and offer relevant content to them at scale?
  • Digital transformational tools. If scaling 1-to-1 content dissemination is important, can you use built-in AI or machine learning technology to make it happen? How will the software account for future advancements?

At the end of the day, it’s less about the software itself, and more about what you can do with it. It’s less about the vendor — though making the best choice for you is important — and more about how you align your business goals with how the B2C software can help you achieve them.

Choosing the Best B2C Software for Your E-Commerce Business FAQs

What are the 5 types of B2C models?

The 5 types of B2C models are:

  • Direct sellers
  • Online intermediaries
  • Advertising-based models
  • Community-based models, and 
  • Fee-based models.

What is the difference between B2C and D2C?

B2C, or Business-to-Consumer, refers to the traditional retail model where businesses sell products or services directly to individual consumers. D2C, or Direct-to-Consumer, is a newer model where manufacturers or brands bypass traditional retail channels and sell directly to consumers.

While both models involve selling to consumers, the key distinction lies in the supply chain and the intermediary role of retailers. In B2C, retailers act as intermediaries, purchasing products from manufacturers or wholesalers and then selling them to consumers. In D2C, the manufacturer or brand eliminates the retailer and establishes a direct relationship with the consumer, often through online channels.

What is an example of a B2C application?

An example of a B2C application is any software or platform designed to facilitate interactions between a business and individual consumers. This could include:

  • E-commerce platforms: Websites or apps like Amazon, eBay, or Shopify where consumers can browse and purchase products directly from businesses.
  • Social media platforms: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok where businesses can connect with and market their products or services to consumers.
  • Streaming services: Platforms like Netflix, Spotify, or Hulu where consumers can access entertainment content directly from businesses.
  • Food delivery apps: Apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, or Grubhub where consumers can order food from restaurants and have it delivered to their homes.
  • Online banking and financial services: Platforms where consumers can manage their finances, apply for loans, or invest their money.

These applications are all designed to make it easier for businesses to connect with and sell their products or services to consumers. They also provide consumers with a convenient and accessible way to shop, find information, and interact with businesses.

Build an omnichannel marketing strategy that keeps customers coming back.

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