It is no news that the B2B e-commerce industry is exceptionally complex. And for your business to prosper within this demanding environment, building an effective platform is paramount. Thus, to create a superior system, you need to assess all risks and eradicate them with QA. So, let us demonstrate how quality assurance can help advance your organization.
6 Ways to Reinforce Your B2B E-Commerce Project with QA
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General Structure of B2B Supplier Chains & Procurement Platforms
Let’s take a quick look at the structure of B2B platforms. It will help us grasp the risk areas better.
The heart of your system is the core platform – a place where you develop and build all of your features. It can be established from scratch by your team or based on existing CMS platforms and customized later.
The second part is the supplier platform. This can be a third-party platform that integrates with your system or a part of the platform developed by you.
Then, there is the face of the project – the buyer platform’s front end.
Further, you can also have some additional integrations that your buyers or suppliers use.
And your system will have to deal with all of these.
B2B E-Commerce Risks and How to Counter Them with QA
In order to counter and avoid the issue of low-quality platforms, it is paramount to develop an effective QA strategy. To do so, you need to ask yourself one question:
What is this project for, and what are the main needs of the clients?
Buyers in B2B expect to get a simple and seamless experience, just as in B2C. Even though the sales approach and philosophy behind B2B are completely different. So, let’s go over the main risk areas you need to consider when forming your QA processes.
#1. Complex Platform Structure
The first area of risk is the intricate platform structure. B2B projects are at least two times bigger in platform size compared to B2C. This means more customized developments, more complex features, and so on. Even if your project is built on an existing CMS, you need to get a lot of work done to adjust it to your needs and use it properly. In fact, about 80% (ed.: numberts by McKinsey, here and further in the text) of all platforms are either customized or modified via additional features.
In these systems, missing the QA process in the early SDLC stages can lead to overlooking some critical defects. In the worst-case scenario, fixing particular mistakes without rewriting half of the platform would be impossible. This inevitably will cost your business a lot of money.
When building a B2B platform, you have to start looking for a QA company or team at the earliest opportunity.
You will need to find a team with relevant experience, expertise, and understanding of B2B processes, which is not that easy. Additionally, the onboarding process is going to take more time than for B2C projects. Thus, you want to plan for that as soon as possible.
#2. Tailor-Made Approach
Nowadays, all clients want a personalized and unique experience. Because every business has its own needs, preferred settings, desired features, etc. For your project, this means having several buyer platforms, or even separate front ends for every consumer.
The goal behind generating multiple platforms is offering your buyers the ability to choose:
- which features they want to enable or disable;
- which settings they are going to apply to their own platform;
- and which features they want to have customized for them specifically.
Precisely because of great competition and rich consumer demands, offering only one option to your clients is a risk in itself. 70% of customers are willing to switch to another platform that is a better alternative for them. Some of the commonly wanted features are:
- contract and flexible pricing;
- detailed product catalogs with reviews;
- 3D models;
- varied payment and shipping options;
- adaptive search (by SKU, industry terms, specific IDs)
- different customer types;
- extensive permission settings, etc.
So, when handling numerous systems, the best approach is to have several QA teams.
> The first one is your core QA team.
They take care of the central platform and test all new features, including how they work individually/combined. QA experts within this group make sure that all functions are stable and ready to be moved to buyer platforms.
> Another (or several) team will focus on the buyer platform(s).
It can be a separate division or a QA representative for every buyer. The latter will work in tandem with customer support and assist with the system setup, covering issues from the client’s side, reviewing change requests, etc.
Such structuring leads to the systematic staging of the QA services. First, the central team starts with the requirements testing, which begins even before the development. So when the requirements are ready and approved by stakeholders, QA specialists can analyze the documentation and determine:
- missing elements/components;
- incomplete features;
- possible difficulties;
- potential conflicts with the existing features;
- contradicting functions, etc.
This allows for minimizing the number of issues that will appear during development. And after the dev process is completed, the core team will perform feature testing on the primary platform, locate and report all bugs, verify all fixes, and ensure that the features are stable and ready to be moved to the buyer platform.
Following this, the QA team for buyers starts working. They help organize each feature, test it in combination with all other features/settings, and determine whether there are no conflicts for a specific buyer.
#3. Dependencies Between the Parts of the Project
Commonly, B2B projects are extremely complex and intricate. Which results in numerous and complicated connections between codes. Consequently, there are many ways to break the system. And the later you notice code-related conflict, the more money and time you will need to invest in fixing it.
The solution to making sure everything works as intended is extensive regression testing.
The best regression is that carried out via manual and automated testing combined. Because you need to:
- test each feature separately;
- review how they work together in the system;
- verify all the core functionality;
- check new additions/updates;
- and, most importantly, assess all changes related to every feature.
Sometimes, the influence of executed alterations can be unpredictable. Thus, if you do not perform regression testing, there is no way for you to notice possible defects.
#4. Integration with Third-Party Platforms
If you have any integrations in your project, it is going to be the bottleneck of the system.
For example, imagine that you have an integration with your supplier CRM. You import information (e.g., prices, inventory, etc.) from this third-party platform, and they load data (e.g., orders, invoices, etc.) to their CRM.
In this process of data exchange, even a few-minute delay can cause severe issues. In particular, your buyers can order products with irrelevant (non-updated) prices, or items can show up as ‘in stock’ on your platform, but the supplier CRM has run out already. Such instances will lead to loss of orders, revenue, and even clients.
To handle integration testing with your QA team, the first step is to make sure that everything is set up properly, the mapping between the two systems is correct, and no data loss occurs.
The next aspect to implement is monitoring the constant integration process. Integration should not undergo a one-time assessment only. You also have to take care of the import/export procedures as they happen.
For instance, let’s say you import prices from a third-party system and check them every hour. If the supplier changes prices right after they are updated, the products on your platform will have irrelevant information. Your buyers could place hundreds of orders just within these sixty minutes. And each item will be incorrectly priced, which is a challenging situation to sort out.
So, you need to establish precise events that trigger the import/export process, specific groundwork, and accurate live tracking.
Remember, the integration process is not a test that you can perform once and forget about. You should constantly monitor any changes and potential impacts. Integration testing should at least be included in every regression test. Even better if you automate it.
#5. Mobile Version of the Platform
One of the most desired features within B2B projects is the mobile version of the platform. Specifically, 65% of buyers are ready to transfer to the competitors when not able to place an order easily from their mobile phones.
Thus, you need to test your platform for a range of mobile and tablet devices.
The main concern is how to choose the devices to test on. If your project is already live – it is easy. You can go to your analytical tools and check what devices most of your clients rely on. Pick, let’s say, the top 4 and start testing with them. And in case you are in the pre-release phase, there is region-based statistical data available. So you can scan relevant databases and select your devices from there.
#6. Sustainability
Sustainability is a very popular societal goal. And for good reasons. More and more companies want to improve their sustainability processes and decrease their share of environmental pollution. In fact, increasing numbers of consumers opt for environmentally responsible companies to buy from. Approximately 60% of clients will choose a firm that is sustainability-driven.
For the B2B industry, this translates to the requirement of following green policies. Fortunately, there are many tools and technologies that can help achieve your sustainability targets. For instance, you can benefit from software that aids in the analysis and prediction of buyers’ needs. Say, you want to know how many products a buyer would want to order for the next month. This software would gather data based on:
- clients’ previous orders;
- region;
- time of the year;
- current and upcoming weather, etc.
Such detailed evaluation would greatly help with stock, order, and even route planning.
These analytical systems are, of course, AI/ML-based. And to function properly, they need time and information to learn. But if you do not provide the conditions necessary for such programs to study, they will not function effectively. Thus bringing more harm than benefit to your business and clients.
Therefore, AI applications necessitate thorough testing.
Including working with data analysts to make sure that the initial data pool used to teach the AI is relevant to the region, country, spheres your buyers work in, etc. After, you would need a QA team to exhaustively test a lot of different scenarios (how your AI works and what results it produces). Testing will also be included in the AI’s learning program as it continues to develop.
To Sum Up
Establishing a quality B2B platform can be quite challenging. There are many aspects to consider, from client needs to industry-specific risks. But everything is possible with a smart business strategy and effective collaborations. QA services play an important role in each. And to make the most of it, you should leverage the full power of quality assurance. This will be the advantage you can use to reach your goals faster and with fewer worries.
