Building Future-Ready B2B Commerce Experiences with Headless CMS

When anyone thinks about ecommerce they’re likely to associate the term with browsing the latest fashion brands, stores making it easier to buy products for the home, and, of course, Amazon. But ecommerce isn’t just business-to-consumer (B2C). 

The business-to-business (B2B) commerce market is expected to reach $24.7 trillion by 2026 and those customers expect the same dynamic, engaging, and personalized experiences as when they shop with their favorite brands.

In this article, we’ll explain how a headless CMS can help B2B organizations meet their eCommerce needs. 

Challenges Facing B2B Commerce Companies

Companies that sell their products to other businesses rather than directly to consumers face several challenges unique to their particular situation. 

Changing Customer Expectations 

B2B is often considered a boring sector. However, a recent trend highlighted by Deloitte indicates that “customers spend 62% more on products and services, on average, when their buying experiences are consistently positive.” 

Although sales cycles tend to be longer due to multiple stakeholders, larger order sizes, and higher costs, among other factors, the B2B buying experience is heavily influenced by the experiences that buyers have when dealing with B2C companies in their personal lives. The B2B commerce experience must also evolve to meet these changing expectations. 

Multichannel Experiences

B2B buyers are no longer relying on cold calling and doing everything offline. Instead, B2B brands must offer their customers an omnichannel shopping experience that includes websites, mobile apps, digital kiosks, and other channels.

Complex Product Catalogs

B2B organizations often need to manage extensive product catalogs that include a high number of SKUs and intricate product specifications. As such, they need solutions that offer various product customization options and provide a seamless way to organize and present this information to customers.

Personalized Experiences

Every eCommerce brand would like to offer personalization. However, for B2B organizations this means the ability to create tailored product recommendations, marketing messages, and pricing structures based on user roles and preferences. 

What Is a Headless CMS For B2B Commerce?

A headless CMS is a content management system with a backend repository that is separated from the front-end display. This enables a headless CMS to deliver content to different channels instead of just a single channel like a website, as a traditional CMS does.

For B2B commerce, the CMS can efficiently handle complex product catalogs, integrate seamlessly with enterprise systems like PIM, ERPs and CRMs, and provide dynamic, customized content to stakeholders such as distributors, resellers, and clients. 

Why Use a  Headless CMS For the Modern B2B Buyer’s Journey

The modern B2B buyer’s journey is happening online. These changing dynamics mean a headless CMS is the perfect companion for the modern B2B buyer’s journey. 

Flexibility and Scalability

A headless CMS can handle the complex and dynamic content needs of B2B brands and scale as those needs increase. For B2B commerce, where content often varies based on region, product specifications, or customer contracts, a headless CMS provides the flexibility to adapt and scale without compromising performance.

Omnichannel Content Distribution

B2B commerce companies must deliver content across various touchpoints—websites, mobile apps, customer portals, and more. A headless CMS allows you to manage all content centrally in one backend and distribute it seamlessly across multiple channels. This ensures consistency and will enable them to maintain a unified brand experience regardless of where customers engage.

API-First Architecture

Integration with enterprise systems like ERPs, CRMs, and PIMs is crucial for B2B commerce to ensure real-time access to product data, pricing, and customer information. A headless CMS’s API-first architecture enables seamless data flow between these systems, allowing businesses to create a streamlined, data-driven content experience.

Advantages of Using a Headless CMS in B2B eCommerce

Using a headless CMS gives B2B commerce companies an advantage over those organizations relying on a traditional or legacy CMS to handle their content experiences. With a headless CMS, B2B companies have the opportunity to provide:

Personalized Content Experiences

A headless CMS allows businesses to deliver tailored content across multiple channels based on customer data, such as purchase history, preferences, or behavior. This personalization improves engagement, enhances customer satisfaction, and can drive better conversion rates by delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Multilingual Content Management

Beyond standard personalization, global B2B organizations need to manage content in multiple languages and for multiple regions. A headless CMS enables teams to localize content to meet those requirements. This provides added messaging consistency across regions while allowing brands to reach and sell to customers across global markets.

Connected Tech Stack

Seamless integration with other enterprise systems is critical for B2B commerce operations. A headless CMS can connect with these systems and create cohesive experiences by leveraging real-time product data, customer information, and order statuses. 

Future-Proofed Infrastructure 

The flexibility of a headless CMS ensures that your B2B commerce tech stack is ready for future changes and advancements. As new technologies emerge, a headless CMS can adapt and integrate them or publish them on emerging channels so that commerce experiences remain engaging. 

How CrafterCMS Delivers For B2B Commerce Brands

B2B commerce is changing, but leading brands need to satisfy customer expectations while handling the complexities of B2B interactions. CrafterCMS is an enterprise-grade headless CMS that can help B2B commerce brands meet those challenges.

Integrated Content and Commerce Stack

CrafterCMS is a composable CMS that is easily customizable. Companies can select and integrate components that align with their unique goals and requirements to serve different use cases and industries for B2B commerce brands. This includes integration with commerce platforms, PIM systems, CRM, and more to gather and share relevant customer and product data.

User-Friendly Content Authoring and Personalization

CrafterCMS offers a best-in-class content authoring environment that includes drag-and-drop experience building, WYSIWYG editing, multichannel previews, and other user-friendly features. This makes it easier for content teams to create, edit, and publish content to promote eCommerce stores and engage customers in an engaging shopping experience. 

Developer Independence

CrafterCMS doesn’t restrict developers to specific ways of working or frameworks. Instead, they can use preferred tools and technologies to create high-quality digital experiences for customers shopping on their website, mobile devices, or another channel.

Marketing and Localization Features

CrafterCMS offers built-in personalization, simple A/B testing and experimentation, and simple digital asset management capabilities. This includes creating localized experiences and translations for multiple products. This enables creators to build and test experiences easily or integrate with leading tools if they need more advanced functionality.  

Omnichannel Capabilities

With its headless architecture, CrafterCMS can provide the omnichannel shopping experiences that B2B customers demand today. Teams can publish content and build stores for websites, mobile apps, tablets and other smart devices.

Elastic Scalability

With CrafterCMS’s robust architecture, enterprises can scale and maintain peak performance even as conditions change, such as when there is a massive spike in traffic due to customers bombarding a website due to a promotion for an eCommerce store. 

Learn More

Learn more about how CrafterCMS helps meet commerce demand by reading Composable Commerce: Composing Content-Rich Experiences with a Headless CMS.