Our Meet the New Buyer Webinar gave brands from all over the world the rare opportunity to speak with an expert panel of buyers from Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale's. We covered a lot of important info for building and establishing vital retail partnerships, and we've compiled key takeaways in this post.
Want to skip ahead? Click below to watch the full webinar on-demand.
Must-haves during virtual market appointments
Among our panel of buyers, there was a strong consensus on the importance of efficiency, storytelling, and meaningful partnerships. Below, read more on how your brand can implement these aspects during a virtual market appointment.
Efficiency is Key
Efficiency is key in digital market appointments. Come prepared to your market appointments by uploading your linesheets and preparing your collection highlights, prices, and delivery dates in NuORDER ahead of time. This enables your buyer to browse offerings before, during, and after with ease. All of this preparation helps direct buyers to what's most important when and how they want to.
A Seamless Buying Experience
Make the most of your B2B eCommerce platform with cohesive storytelling throughout your brand homepage. Fully utilize all its features and add supplemental assets to allow buyers to view the inspiration behind the line, color story, and virtual showrooms with shoppable hotspots. This is a great opportunity to feature videos or images that share the key inspiration behind your designs. All of this creates a seamless buying experience that paints a clearer picture of what your brand has to offer..
Mutual Goal of Growing Business and Being Successful Together
COVID-19 tested brands and retailers to rapidly implement new buying terms, flexibility on orders, and go deeper into their existing partnerships. Aside from great product, buyers are looking for brands that will partner through the ups and downs with the mutual goal of growing the business and being successful together.
Common B2B pain points in the buying process
Establishing meaningful retail partnerships means understanding the biggest pain points your buyers are facing. Do your best to anticipate their needs before they ask and build the mutually beneficial partnership they're looking for.
Unclear, Ununified Order Placement Process
Buyers are exclusively turning to NuORDER explore, buy, and plan assortments. With one centralized platform, brands can give their buyers the unified experience they want and need to be successful. Here's what one buyer had to say:
"Using NuORDER has 100% streamlined our buying process. We can see a full assortment and a full season in one platform. And we can sort in many different ways whether by class, month, brand, and all of our item intent is in one place, making it easy to review with our team."
JOYCE LIN, NORDSTROM BUYER, WOMEN'S ADVANCED CONTEMPORARY
Cumbersome, Inflexible Payment Options
B2B payments are finally catching up to the plethora of options B2C buyers have. NuORDER Payments gives buyers the ability to split payments, pay-upon-ship, and the ability to pay from where ever they might be globally. Gone are the days of manually input payments, cumbersome phone calls, and the security vulnerability of pen and paper. Elevate your payment options to give buyers the experience they have on B2C portals.
Visualizing Buys in a Digital Context
Just because things are remote doesn't mean you can't offer buyers a top notch digital experience. Embrace all the technology available to best convey your brand story. Details like "guided" virtual showrooms tours turn a presentation into an opportunity for brands and retailers to collaborate on creating the best possible assortments.
"Because we're coming in live from the showroom, they're able to pull the samples as we go through NuORDER and at the same time we're moving it logistically in NuORDER so it's live and in tandem and that's been a lifesaver during COVID."
WENNY LUO, BLOOMINGDALE'S BUYER, WOMEN'S MODERN COLLECTIONS
Wrap-up
Looking to dive deeper into what these buyers had to say about their current pressures, changes they'd like to see from brands, and how technology is improving the buying process? Watch the full webinar on-demand here.
