Sell digitally

These five solutions are for the company whose orders still arrive by phone, fax and email, and which wants a first digital channel that does not fail in front of its regulars. They share one foundation, the product catalog, and they differ in how much risk they take on at launch.

Start with the catalog if your product data lives in an ERP export and a folder of PDFs. Nobody can place a wrong order against a catalog, and every later project is shorter because it exists. Start with the portal if your Innendienst spends its mornings resending invoices; it is useful on day one and changes nothing about how anyone buys. Start with the shop if the catalog and the prices are already in order and you have five customers willing to go first. Marketplaces and the long tail come after that, because both punish bad data faster than your own customers do.

• Launch a B2B shop — The full first build: catalog, prices, customers, checkout, go-live.
• Launch a customer portal — One place for documents, orders and self-service, instead of five email threads.
• Publish a digital catalog — Often the first project: get the product data structured and visible, before any transaction.
• Sell through marketplaces — Mercateo, Amazon Business, your own dealer portal: the same catalog, a different cut per channel.
• Reach more customers — Serve the long tail your field sales team can never economically reach.