This week marked the exciting announcement: Magento 2.2 will be available in the next coming months for client use and is available now for developers to test and get comfortable with. When Magento 2.2 was announced by Jason Woosely, SVP Product and Technology at Magento during their annual Imagine conference in April, the room was definitely abuzz.
So, whether your brand is still on Magento 1 and looking to re-platform, on Magento 2 and want to take the upgrade, or you are on another platform and want to migrate to Magento 2.2: what can we expect from this release?
B2B Enhancements
According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce is expected to reach $6.7 trillion globally in the next three years, and is now twice the size of the business-to-consumer online buying market. Magento is seizing the opportunity to help their clients succeed in B2B online sales in the Magento 2.2 release with features like:
• Submit a request for a company/business account
• Designate a “Super User” (admin) to manage the company’s multiple accounts
• Drag-and-drop buyers into a hierarchy that matches the business structure
• View orders and quotes for direct reports
Source: Magento Live
Company Accounts
Magento 2.2 users have the autonomy to sort company accounts, filter search results to find specific accounts, and assign a sales rep to the account in the Magento admin panel. B2B buyers can assign roles and permissions to their team based on business responsibilities. Taking B2B buying from a traditionally pen-and-paper industry to digital is easily manageable when teams across the enterprise have access to information they need to sell and manage relationships.
Easy Quote Requests
B2B buyers can quick-start quotes from the shopping cart or previously placed quotes or orders, notation or justification to the buyers making the decision to approve, modify or deny the quote. Clients can then track their quote status and correspond with the merchant as-needed directly in the Magento admin panel until an approved quote is reached. Merchants can see an entire history of quotes with their business buyers with a log of correspondence for each one.
Additional features include quote expiration dates, suggested upsells, negotiable shipping rates and more. B2B buyers can bulk order from a CSV file of skus, increasing AOV.
Want to know how to implement a B2B selling strategy into your Magento site? Let’s chat.
