The need for an online store is crucial for today’s parts, equipment and attachment sellers in the construction industry. As the push for digitization and remote sales begins to disrupt and take over the marketplace, building customer loyalty online and establishing yourself as an innovator is important now more than ever.
Within the construction and agriculture industries “more than 50% of B2B buyers want to use e-Commerce to make purchases (a ‘digital self-serve’ channel), while less than 30% want to interact with a sales rep face-to-face to complete the transaction.” (McKinsey & Company, 2019) This has only been made worse over the last seven months during the pandemic.
In today’s digital world, it’s important for parts, equipment, and attachment sellers to make products available to customers online seamlessly with all information at their fingertips. The biggest challenge these sellers face is how to create a frictionless experience and how to get their branded e-Commerce site up and running quickly, efficiently, and affordably.
These companies need to start this process by determining whether selling direct or using a white label solution is the right approach.
1. Management and Manpower
Sell direct e-Commerce sites are custom built from scratch and often need a lot of manpower to develop and organize. Using a SmartEquip e-Commerce engine with a white label solution offers sellers the ability to “plug and play” their brand and products with an established technology.
White label technology eliminates the need for parts, equipment, and attachments sellers to invest in infrastructure or technology to launch an online marketplace, solving three important considerations when companies are deciding whether to white label or sell direct.
2. Startup Cost
To create, maintain, and manage a custom site takes time, money, and resources. Pricing a sell-direct e-Commerce website not only includes initial web development price, but incorporates costs associated with continued investments in improved functionality, user experience enhancements, and marketing. An upper level budget that includes all of the above can cost up to $350,000 to build. (Jon Jordan, Atlantic BT, 2020)
For most parts, equipment, and attachment sellers, affording a custom-built site is not feasible from a time and budget standpoint. A white label option, like SmartEquip’s e-Commerce solutions, takes a substantial amount of these factors out of the equation by skipping over initial development costs. In turn, the cost of implementation is significantly lower – approximately 90% less expensive than sell direct.
3. Leverage Data, Pricing, and Build Customer Loyalty Fast
Developing a custom e-Commerce site to include user experience enhancements can drain internal resources. The biggest challenge within the construction industry is finding the right product support content for ordering parts online.
For 20 years, SmartEquip has been building a network of over 600 OEM brands with a digital product support library to make it easy for technicians to order the right parts for the equipment.
SmartEquip’s e-Commerce platforms offer parts, equipment, and attachment sellers a user experience that leverages pre-existing product support diagrams. As a product standard for this white label solution, the user experience is ideal, making both product support and ordering is as simple as a few clicks of a button.
“Our current SmartEquip site is light years ahead of where we started. Our customers find it user friendly and very accurate to reduce mistakes in the ordering process. It has become a total resource solution for our customers, sales force and tech department.” –Dana Schrack, VP Sales at Mi-T-M Corp.
In addition to cost and user experience considerations, another important factor in building an online store is branding. Building brand awareness online is essential to maintaining customer loyalty in today’s digital world.
SmartEquip’s e-Commerce platforms make it easy for sellers to stand out above the brands they sell by offering a white label platform that will quickly and efficiently incorporate their logo, theme colors, and messaging from top to bottom. The tools and technology needed to build a fully branded online shop comes standard, allowing for seamless integration to kick start building customer loyalty online.
Choosing a SmartEquip e-Commerce White Label Solution
Choosing a white label and sell-direct e-Commerce solution ultimately comes down to the overall cost, level of resources, and demand by customers. As the construction industry evolves, the push for technology and online selling is crucial. SmartEquip has what you need to move your business forward.
If you are an equipment owner or authorized dealer looking to support your customers online with a user friendly, efficient, and affordable solution, schedule a demo of SmartEquip e-Commerce Store. OEMs looking to offer both support material and sell original parts should schedule a demo of SmartEquip e-Commerce Support.
Sources:
McKinsey & Company, 2019. “Master E-Commerce, Master the Future” for AEM Annual Conference 2019.
Jon Jordan, Atlantic BT, January 10, 2020. “How Much Does an eCommerce Website Cost in 2020?” www.atlanticbt.com
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