5 Must-Have Features for a B2B Web-to-Print Storefront

By: Ayelet Szabo-Melamed, Vice President Marketing, XMPie

Today, if you don’t have a Web-to-print (W2P) solution you may be missing out on valuable business opportunities. In this digital world, convenience is key – and a W2P storefront can provide the convenience and efficiencies your business needs and your customers want.

The features you will need in your storefront are dependent upon your customer base. In the B2B space, you can create private W2P storefronts for your business customers’ employees to order products 24/7 to support their day to day activities, from marketing materials to business cards, and process and fulfill their orders more efficiently. Must-have features include:

1. Integration with Current Business Processes

Your W2P Storefront should easily integrate with your businesses processes to ensure there are no hiccups in your workflow. If anything, you’ll likely streamline more than a few manual tasks. The solution should be able to weave in seamlessly with your MIS system and offer a variety of key capabilities such as multi-level approval options, single sign-on user authentication, recipient list upload, split-shipping and the different billing methods including credit cards, purchase orders and budget centers.

2. Easy Setup and Maintenance

Creating each storefront shouldn’t be a hassle. Look for a solution that has a user-friendly dashboard so you can easily set up and manage each store. With XMPie StoreFlow, for example, you’ll step through a few set-up tabs to define basic information to get your store online quickly. From there, you can define the parameters for product catalogs and user profiles.

3. Matching the Brand Style

Branding is everything and creating a familiar e-commerce experience for your customers is key. Look for capabilities that allow you to control each store’s skin to mimic the look and feel to match the brand standards. This way, the customer’s end-users will feel more comfortable to use the portal.

4. VDP Capabilities

Variable Data Printing (VDP) features that offer the ability to customize a print product to each end-user is a must in any storefront, even if only customizing a simple business card. Make sure that your W2P storefront can support both static AND variable documents to drive a wide variety of printed options.  Ensure that the products you offer completely adhere to the exact branding guidelines, for instance by using the correct Pantone colors.

5. Scalability

Every W2P system is different and being able to scale functionality based on current and future needs is important. Two years down the line you may need to bump up capabilities to help you and your business customers meet growing requirements, so a scalable solution is key.

Want to learn more about W2P? Stop by Xerox booth #1621 to learn more about XMPie’s PersonalEffect StoreFlow, which is suited for both B2B and B2C markets.