DrupalCon New Orleans 2016: Drupal's Big B2B Commerce Opportunity
This session will describe how B2B commerce poses unique challenges to most eCommerce platforms, and how the inherent "goodness" of Drupal can be leveraged to solve complex B2B eCommerce problems. This session will raise awareness with the audience of new types of client profiles / scenarios where Drupal is a particularly good fit, and provide proof points to help clients understand why it is a good technology option for them.
B2B ecommerce is just different. When companies transact with consumers online, certain things are taken for granted as "standard"... you and I are going to pay the same price for a product, use a personal credit card to pay for it, and I will be able to specify where I want the goods shipped to.
These "standards" are all turned on their head in the realm of B2B. Different customers pay different prices for the same product, and usually pay a different unit cost based on how many they order (or even when they want it). Payment methods abound, credit card, direct debit, or generation of an invoice to be paid later. And the customer is no longer a single entity, but rather a company made up of multiple users, each with different purchase permissions. Most eCommerce platforms out there were built from the ground up to accomodate B2C use cases and process flows, and when agencies try to utilize these platforms to accomodate complex B2B client requirements, they usually find that they need to heavily customize or "un-do" many of the core capabilities that are built into the platform.
Drupal Commerce is different. Using some of the foundational concepts / building blocks that are baked into Drupal (nodes, taxonomies, views, feeds, etc.), savvy Drupal site builders and developers are able build eCommerce applications that support complex B2B transaction types without a lot extra code "overhead". This session will reveal just how the complexities of B2B eCommerce pose challenges for traditional commerce platforms, and shed light on yet another scenario where Drupal is the right tool for the job
Some knowledge of Drupal and eCommerce is recommended.
B2B ecommerce is just different. When companies transact with consumers online, certain things are taken for granted as "standard"... you and I are going to pay the same price for a product, use a personal credit card to pay for it, and I will be able to specify where I want the goods shipped to.
These "standards" are all turned on their head in the realm of B2B. Different customers pay different prices for the same product, and usually pay a different unit cost based on how many they order (or even when they want it). Payment methods abound, credit card, direct debit, or generation of an invoice to be paid later. And the customer is no longer a single entity, but rather a company made up of multiple users, each with different purchase permissions. Most eCommerce platforms out there were built from the ground up to accomodate B2C use cases and process flows, and when agencies try to utilize these platforms to accomodate complex B2B client requirements, they usually find that they need to heavily customize or "un-do" many of the core capabilities that are built into the platform.
Drupal Commerce is different. Using some of the foundational concepts / building blocks that are baked into Drupal (nodes, taxonomies, views, feeds, etc.), savvy Drupal site builders and developers are able build eCommerce applications that support complex B2B transaction types without a lot extra code "overhead". This session will reveal just how the complexities of B2B eCommerce pose challenges for traditional commerce platforms, and shed light on yet another scenario where Drupal is the right tool for the job
Some knowledge of Drupal and eCommerce is recommended.