Can B2B companies make the leap to capture B2C customers? It isn’t always as easy as it seems. Here are a few things that I would recommend reviewing before making that leap from B2B to B2C.
Will Retail Customers Like Your Products? – This sounds like an obvious question, but you need to find this out before investing in a marketing strategy for retail. Oftentimes, a product that sells very well in a B2B environment, doesn’t sell well in B2C. I worked for an industrial supply distributor and we wanted to increase our sales for our best selling products. When we posted 50,000 products on Amazon.com, something very interesting happened. Our slow moving products in B2B were our best sellers in B2C. We thought that we knew what the retail consumers wanted, but we were wrong. Customers don’t always behave like businesses.
Are Your Products Priced Correctly? – You need to do some market research regarding the products that you want to sell in the retail market. If your products are similar to others in the marketplace, then do some competitive pricing analysis. If you have a unique product, you need to determine what your pricing strategy is.
Is Your Infrastructure Set Up For A Direct To Consumer Market? – When selling your products to the B2C market, are you set up to sell individual products instead of bulk shipments? The B2B companies that I have worked for were already set up to handle large numbers of individual orders. Not all companies can handle a huge influx of individual orders. Make sure that your company can handle whatever the retail market throws at you.
Does The B2C Market Know That Your Company Exists? – Wanting to sell products that historically have been marketed directly to businesses may not be thought of or exposed to direct consumers. You will need a B2C marketing plan. How are you going to get the word out that you sell to end consumers? You may need to invest in print and online advertising to let customers know what your company sells. Press releases are also a good way to get the word out. Google Adwords and Social Media are another way to get exposure online.
Know Your Target Audience – The best way to expand in new markets is to talk customers that you want to target. Focus Groups and surveys are great places to collect information about your market. Understand what motivates customers to purchase products. Thanks to Amazon and other retailers, free shipping and discounts are some of the rules you need to understand in B2C markets. End consumers don’t always behave the same way that businesses do. Price sensitivity is a serious challenge especially with highly competitive products.
Understand How Your Existing Customers Will React To Your Company Going Direct to Consumers – It can get a little tricky when you move into a consumer market, especially if you have a distributor network. I worked for several companies that sold directly to businesses and to distributors. In that scenario, you need to make sure your distributor base isn’t threatened by your selling to businesses. This issue can even get more convoluted when you add selling to retail.
Do your homework before making the leap to B2C. If you make sure that you research whether the B2C market will buy your products and at what price point, ensure your company’s infrastructure can handle the potential influx of individual orders, build a solid B2C marketing plan and understand how your existing customers will react to you expanding into new markets, you should have the framework for expansion into that market.
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