Ecommerce for the Healthcare Spare Parts Aftermarket – Part 2
Ecommerce has revolutionized the buying experiences of industry sectors globally and elevated accessibility levels. The medical industry is experiencing this wave of change today in ecommerce for B2B. In our previous blog on the need for ecommerce for the spareparts aftermarket in the healthcare industry, we addressed just how significant this shift is.
In this blog, we dive into the benefits of making this shift and providing spare parts in the Health and Life Sciences (HLS) industry through ecommerce. Because you won’t just be selling products, you will enable customers with accessibility, speed, and top-notch customer service when executed correctly. Also, it is interesting to note that Forrester’s research predicted that by 2023, in the US alone, the sale of medical healthcare ecommerce will reach $1.8 trillion! The high demand is clearly there, and sellers are meeting it. To stay relevant, increase profit margins, and scale your business, you must move towards healthcare ecommerce.
Let’s dive in!
8 Benefits of Ecommerce for the Spare Parts Aftermarket in the Healthcare Industry
1. Superior Customer Service
Your customers will be glad to experience a platform where they can order spare parts seamlessly, browse through catalogs easily, and experience a great post-order experience.
You also empower them with self-service capabilities where they can check and track their orders in real time with minimal support team interaction. They can obtain all pertinent information and know precisely when they will receive their orders which helps them better manage inventory.
Your customers will do business with you more often if you provide them with a hassle-free experience.
2. Invaluable Buyer Insights
How your customers interact on your ecommerce platform will provide awareness of real time customer and medical industry trends. You can realize the importance of certain spare parts over others when there is a rise in users looking for them and manage your stock accordingly.
Additionally, you’ll gain important visibility into each customer’s patterns and needs and build a more niche buyer persona. These vital insights will give you the necessary data to formulate effective strategies.
An ecommerce platform also gives you valuable information about your customers’ browsing behavior.
Some pages are likely to receive more traffic than others, and you can evaluate why this is happening and make business decisions. Likewise, metrics such as bounce rate, CTR, search keywords, traffic data, location, and length of browsing sessions will give you the information you need to consistently improve the platform and stay on top of your game. Enhancing your SEO experience with such data will also help your organic visibility.
Using all these insights, you can do A/B tests on your platform, analyze what works and strengthen the experience you provide your customers.
3. Save Lives
The healthcare domain needs partners in the spare parts aftermarket sector that are reliable. The products they need sometimes are highly time-sensitive, and they need spare parts providers who will come through. With a capable ecommerce platform, you can plan your stocks well and be that manufacturer.
Additionally, they must understand the products listed well before ordering and make a well-informed decision. Thus, your ecommerce platform must include all product information in the right manner. When done well, this builds trust and reliability.
4. Service the D2C sector
During the pandemic, physical stores ran out of many necessary devices and medicines. Patients and their families needed to find new ways to acquire everything they needed. In a digital shift, manufacturers started reaching customers directly online, not just through hospitals or clinics, and Direct-to-customer (D2C) initiatives increased.
With an ecommerce platform, you can service the healthcare industry better, of course. At the same time, you can also cater to underserved D2C buyers. This provides newer revenue avenues and offers such customers important equipment quickly without relying on healthcare giants.
5. Enable Users with Smart Search and Gain Customer Wins
An ecommerce platform that empowers its customers will make it easy for them to carry out the most basic functions. The ecommerce platform enabled by Salesforce and powered by Coveo adds an added intelligent search functionality that your customers will appreciate.
It is AI-powered, and tunes search queries with relevant suggestions. It allows customers to find products using recommendations and also discover products. It helps them find what they are looking for quickly and makes you a customer that provides a customer experience.
6. Build a Global Medical Community
Spare parts for healthcare are necessary well beyond the location you are primarily serving. However, with an ecommerce platform that makes it easy to coordinate different areas, you can service well beyond your existing borders.
Serving multiple locations is especially important in the healthcare industry. During a global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, several regions lacked important spare parts, machinery, and medicines. Many organizations came together to provide equal fighting chances to everyone, irrespective of their location.
As a spare parts aftermarket provider, you can help bridge these gaps, build new revenue models, and make valuable spare parts available to nations globally with a platform that is well equipped to provide such options. Ecommerce platforms such as Salesforce help you launch in different market segments without hassle. It can also help you handle the different payment needs of other locations with simple setups.
7. Drive inbound sales
Reaching out to customers and finding new ways to expand your customer footprint can sometimes be cumbersome. However, it becomes easier if your customers find you and come to your ecommerce platform by themselves. When you have a platform that is well done and upholds the right SEO practices, customers will find you when they look for spare parts in the healthcare industry.
This way of self-service is more popular today. Customers like to research their manufacturers and providers because they already know what they want to buy. In the healthcare industry, they aren’t browsing products like B2C target audiences might be.
The B2C customers know what they want and the exact quantity. Thus, when you have an ecommerce platform, you bring yourself to the forefront among competitors. When you provide them with a good browsing experience, they are bound to make inquiries for products they want. With an omnichannel experience, they can reach out to you via ecommerce website, social media, text, email, call, contact forms, and more. Your sales reps can then reach out to them and further the connection.
8. Reduce Costs in Multiple Ways
The process of selling spare parts for the healthcare industry can be a demanding manual work-filled task. Whether it is generating invoices, keeping up with compliance needs, or administrative tasks – an ecommerce platform can help you automate it all with minimal supervision. This can result in significant savings in terms of labor hours and retain your employees’ time for essential tasks.
Automating these processes can also ensure that transactions are error-free. Often, the delivery of the wrong products can lead to backlash from customers and ultimately loss of revenue.
You can also have the right information about your existing stock, prepare well for future needs and reflect this correct information on your ecommerce website. This will help avoid several problems. It enables you to prevent stock and other issues that can result in losing business and prevent customer disappointment by notifying them about the lack of stock after they place orders.
Empower Customers and Scale Your Business with the Right Ecommerce Platform
Now you know how an ecommerce platform can benefit you as a manufacturer of spare parts in the healthcare industry. The HLS domain relies heavily on reliable partners for their everyday processes, and thus, to be a reliable player in this domain, you need to equip yourself with the right tools. An ecommerce platform from Salesforce is one tool that helps you scale according to your requirements.
It allows you to provide an omnichannel experience for B2B and D2C segments to ensure business growth. We at RafterOne are a trusted Salesforce partner with decades of implementation experience and guiding customers with our marketing expertise. Contact us today to collaborate and build the healthcare ecommerce platform of the future.