3 factors distinguish B2B buyer journeys

Time was repeatedly stated as the most critical factor in purchases. Product delays mean significant impacts to business revenue. Users were willing to compromise on product and delivery costs for speedy delivery times. Consequently, the marketplace was expected to provide information quickly, with minimal clicks to aid in rapid buyer requests.

The most common way participants began their research process for unfamiliar products was by talking to people within their industry or the industry they were purchasing for. Participants trusted their peers’ opinions because they had professional knowledge to accurately review the product for business needs. Following obtaining peer recommendations, participants furthered their product research online, through Google, Youtube, or direct merchant sites. Finally, if necessary, they would contact a few trusted vendors and decide to purchase.

Pain Point

The overall pain point all participants had with their research process was the excessive number of steps it took to make an informed purchase. Specifically, they felt they were met with long product descriptions, biased reviews, and unhelpful product recommendations that took time to filter through and evaluate. Instead, they wanted to be directly connected with quick, relevant product information, like unique product features, that would allow for easy comparisons.

Marketplace Views Based on Product Type

Users want to be connected to their product quicker, but searching through dozens of products on the marketplace landing page can be overwhelming as users have to click each product to verify specs. More so different products have different comparison attributes. Creating 3 versions of the marketplace landing that correlate with 3 product types (highly visual, high-spec, and mix) allows a more efficient selection process. Marketplace would automatically select the landing page based on product type but users have the ability to change the selection if needed. However, the research uncovered that users wanted to use multiple views even for the same product and had sequence preferences as well.

• Influence of Product Type-  Product type was the most influential factor in view preference (see above)

• Product Category Knowledge-When users had high product knowledge, they preferred Grid View as they only needed basic information. When they had low product knowledge, they preferred List View as they could learn about the product from the product description and additional specs, like model variations. Table View was considered somewhat helpful for low product knowledge, as it provided an overall product category description but lacked individual product information on the SRP, like individual product images. 

Additional information in single-product display

The current single-product experience did not have enough information on the page for users to feel they were making a truly informed purchase. They did not feel it targeted enough information that would be relevant for B2B purchases such as bulk discounts or 3rd party sellers. To find this information many users would do additional research on the retailer’s site, which slowed down purchasing time. To address this we created additional tabs that provided information to the B2B buyer that was both more relevant and clear, without leaving the marketplace.

Technical Specs

Initial impressions to the technical specs information were mostly positive, with many participants stating “this is all the information I would need.” Participants appreciated information like installation, brand, and material. A few participants felt information like warranty, product title, and product image should be included within the technical specs chart for ease of comparison. 

Third-party sellers were a common pain point for most participants. Participants were less likely to make purchases with third-party sellers because they related past experiences and distrusted their ability to provide on-time purchases, return policies, and fair pricing. A few were not allowed to use third-party sellers because their business was wary of biased purchases. As a result, some participants wanted to avoid third-party sellers and have them clearly marked on their SRP or ‘Buying Options.’ 

Once reaching the post-tap experience of the “i”, all participants appreciated seeing contextual information, like discount differences, to understand the price range displayed on the SRP. A few mentioned the percentage discount was helpful for simple price comparison. However, many felt that delivery and tax should be explicitly mentioned in case it varied by number of units. Some also found the term ‘unit’ to be confusing and wanted to see either price for total number of boxes, price per box, or price for a range of boxes per discount.

Creation of Prefered Sellers Dashboard

In current experience testing, distrust of the marketplace was mentioned by a few individuals when they noticed a lack of brand or retailer diversity. When common retailers, like Walmart, were not found on the SRP, they assumed the marketplace was intentionally hiding Walmart to promote other retailers. This was considered a major roadblock as users wanted to see all options available and decide retailers and brands themselves, rather than being fed the retailers or brands they assumed Marketplace was being paid to promote. But simply increasing diversity did not perform well on user tests because users felt it took them longer to find retailers/brands they were familiar with or trusted. However, user interviews revealed that all users had a preferred or familiar sellers list after developing relationships with trusted vendors that consistently provided high-quality products, great customer service, and reliable delivery times. Thus, we added functionality in which users could set up Preferred Sellers, which would automatically populate preferred sellers at the top of their SRP for subsequent purchases.

1. User flow begins with a tutorial feature to alert users of Preferred Seller’s functionality. On the left-hand side, there is also free-flow option so users can select from the marketplace landing page itself.

2. Users are taken to a dashboard where they can select their preferred sellers from the list.

3. Users now will see preferred seller retails populate first on the marketplace and sellers in the single-product display. They also have the ability to view only products by preferred sellers.

All indicated they would set up Preferred sellers (Ps) for their products as it saved time spent researching sellers or filtering irrelevant products. In the ‘Show only- Preferred sellers’ tab, the ability to compare PS products side-by-side allowed participants to focus on details like price or delivery time.

However, some additional customization was required by users.

• Fear of Missing Products- Participants feared they might miss non-PS products that might be cheaper or with quicker delivery. To mitigate, some suggested an option to see PS and non-PS products on one page with the PS products highlighted at the top.

• Need for Product Category Differences- Since many had different PS for different product categories, some wanted the ability to select and separate PS by product categories to finely tune their preferences (i.e. Grainger for construction, Walmart for office supplies).

Thus additional iterations on this concept will resume.

Next Steps

Additional Testing on Preferred Sellers to understand more about customization requirements, learnability of dashboard vs. free-flow method, and usability testing.

Additional testing and focusing on uncovering differences in buyer journeys across verticals and sizes, to influence a more specific, user-centric design strategy.