Remember when eCommerce was going to revolutionize B2B sales? Twenty years in, only a handful of channels have capitalized on the initial promise. But distributors aren’t to blame for the operational failure, says Justin Johnson, Founder of Motivate. He maintains that the major e-commerce platforms should bear the blame. They failed to grasp that most orders are placed from the job site via mobile, a recurring purchase order, or a list scribbled on a piece of drywall. Jason spoke with Justin about his company’s innovative plug-and-play order processing solution, a PO-to-cart widget that works with the software distributors already own. It can even convert images into orders with incredible accuracy.
“People have these eCommerce systems; they’ve already spent a ton of time and energy focusing on the customer, giving them a great way to buy online,” Justin acknowledges. “Unfortunately, a lot of these platforms don’t know our world. They probably never talked to somebody buying from a distributor or a supply house.” That buyer isn’t a typical consumer. They’re a contractor, facilities manager, or industrial customer who has little time to navigate a print catalog or website, especially for commonly reordered items. “They have purchase orders, and they don’t want to reenter this information. They just want to take that file and send it to the cart,” says Justin. “But because that hasn’t been available, they’ve just defaulted to sending their order into the CSRs, completely skipping eCommerce.”
Motivate turns a distributor’s lagging eCommerce site into a true profit center. “Our core product is around sales order automation,” explains Justin. “It’s not just about buying off of the website. Customers want to buy from their phones, whether it’s text, WhatsApp, voice, email, or even images.” Motivate streamlines purchasing, enabling customers to upload their orders in virtually any format they prefer. “We process and read all that unstructured data,” Justin says. “We recognize it, match it to the e-commerce catalog, and 90% of the time, it’s an exact match.”
The best part? Motivate works with existing ERP, CRM, and eCommerce platforms. “It’s a game-changer for buyers,” Justin observes. And an enticing ROI for distributors.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
QUOTES
“For a channel to work, the eCommerce world has to work with the way that these contractors are buying.”
“To the credit of the distributors and the eCommerce managers and even the platforms, they’ve done everything right except for really listening to the customer, which is a key piece.”
“Finally, there’s a solution that allows me to buy online without jumping through a ton of hoops and spending a ton of time and ultimately just sending the file into the CSR.”
“That’s ultimately the solution: meet the customer where they’re at with their list, their unstructured list on a 2×4, a piece of paper, or an Excel file, or a PD, allow them to send it, whatever device they have, to be able to make an order. And that’s ultimately how eCommerce wins in this day and age in this environment, meeting the customer where they’re at.”
“You can’t take the same experience that a consumer has and apply it to B2B, especially in the world that we live.”
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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth, and achieve personal goals.
This episode was edited by The Creative Impostor Studios Special thanks to our sponsors for this episode: Connected Peers, providing virtual communities for wholesale distributors; and INxSQL Distribution Software, an integrated distribution ERP software designed for the wholesale and distribution industry.
