Le New Black: 3 tips for a fruitful B2B prospecting

Growing your business with professional buyers today means both facing the unprecedented upheavals of the Covid era, and benefiting from innovating digital tools to meet these new challenges. Here are three tips to embrace a ‘new generation’ wholesale.

1.    Meet B2B buyers new standards

Commercial relationships between the brand and the buyer used to start with a physical meeting in a showroom or at a trade show, and to end by email with the confirmation of quantities on Excel or online with a B2B platform.

In 18 months, the norm has changed. As Anissa Draa, luxury women's fashion buyer at Printemps pointed out at the HoT round table on 1 December 2021: "Brands had to reinvent the way they sell their collections and the way they sell them to us. They showed great agility when the pandemic started, and in just two months they were all equipped with a virtual showroom, with all the tools and customer support to allow us to work remotely.”

Thanks to online showrooms, buyers can now immerse into the brand's DNA at their leisure, thanks to a seamless user experience and rich content : Brand history, collection inspirations, press reviews, the digital showroom allows you to showcase and update text, image, video content. Buyers nowadays discover the collection online and judge the fit of the garment and the quality of the materials.

Don't leave any detail to chance: the aesthetics of your virtual showroom and even its url have their role to play on your image, exactly like your B2C e-commerce website or your Instagram account!

2.   Bend it like a B2C e-commerce master

Brands and buyers now work together all year long, online and offline in between fashion trade events: your B2B showroom needs to be at its best 24/7 to promote your brand, engage buyers and sell collections!

Investing in highly qualitative photo shoots for B2B is significant, but quickly profitable for a brand when using them for B2B and B2C e-commerce. Offer your B2B prospects the same level of comfort as for B2C clients: several views of the product, photos of details that matter, images of looks, you can even shoot your products at 360° with Grand Shooting, Le New Black partner : your B2B buyers appreciate seeing garments in motion! Brands can even enhance their digital showrooms with a virtual tour of their physical showroom, buyers visit independently or with the support of a sales representative by video.

Until now, in-stock orders were reserved to regular customers. Today, they can now represent a "test order" with less risks for the brand and the new customer: the brand sends a digital invitation to discover available stocks in the online showroom, recommends best-seller per country to the prospect who simply orders online, just like in an e-commerce store! Buyers receive the items quickly and "test" them with their customers.

If pre-orders can be placed remotely online when buyers don’t travel, the most exciting digital showroom is the best way for a brand and a buyer to nurture a sustainable business relationship, with future physical meetings as soon as borders and fashion weeks reopen. The quality of commercial relations, the touch of the fabrics, the transmission of a culture will always remain at the core business of a buyer and a fashion brand.

3.   Be your buyer’s best partner

B2B buyers are like any B2C ecommerce customer: they expect a personalised service, and a curated offer.

To meet their expectations, you need traceability in your relationship with prospects. Mailchimp or Sendinblue type newsletters do not allow you to know what the buyer has seen and potentially liked whereas an invitation tool integrated into your B2B digital showroom allows you to know if the buyer has clicked on your invitation, accessed your online showroom, and what content and products he or she has seen. Sending the buyer a tailored selection of products shows your knowledge of the store positioning and content. At tradeshows or showrooms, you will be able to work with buyers from selections and turn them into orders. Your buyers will appreciate that you offer them the most powerful tools to collaborate with you before, during and after pre-orders!

Cindy Gout, sales representative for EGONlab enjoys it: "When we are in the showroom at the Palais de Tokyo, we prepare selections and then enter orders on the iPad application: the ergonomics and the presentation of the collections are very convincing!"

Audience and sales live analytics from your B2B showroom will also give you good indications to advise your buyers wisely, to cancel items or to build next season's sales strategy.

Keep in mind that buyers are more than ever flooded with information from brands. To stand out, you have to know your prospects and give priority to the quality of the target over the quantity of prospects. Which shop fits with your price point, your style? Which brands is it realistic to be distributed alongside, in which city, country? Don’t underestimate LinkedIn to learn more about the career moves of your buyer and share common interests, and phone calls to nurture a business relation: targeted follow-up is the key!

One last word:

A developing brand reaching the international market today must stand out: make the difference with collections but also with the quality of your B2B digital showroom.  It must express your DNA but also offer a series of powerful and efficient tools to seduce, convince and help you exceed your commercial objectives. Finally, making a difference also means implementing a strong "phygital B2B" strategy, with digital tools serving physical interactions throughout the sales season. Read our white paper on new practices for successful wholesaling.