The Great Pandemic Pivot: How B2B companies are adapting to survive and even thrive

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to roll on, many businesses have been forced to find new ways to brave harsh and constantly changing economic conditions.

The way the world used to work may not return for some time – if at all – but businesses have been calling on ingenuity and imagination at all levels to not just survive these conditions but to thrive in them.

How does this impact B2B businesses?

The B2B sector has been particularly badly hit by the pandemic. With lengthy lockdowns commonplace, this has left limited opportunities to sell to other companies. Far too many clients are either closed or working remotely. Many more remain open, but with smaller budgets to work with, and a drastically reduced workforce.

This sudden halt was unprecedented for most companies, and the path back to financial stability is a rocky and uncertain one. Thankfully, there are ways that companies can overcome their setbacks, by pivoting towards direct-to-consumer business.

At Fetchify, we have seen how many businesses are changing their whole way of working to stay afloat in these tumultuous economic waters. The service industry has, of course, been especially hit but we’ve seen traditionally B2B businesses in the food and retail space, where the situation seems increasingly bleak, turn their business models on their heads and reach out directly to the end consumer.

From food supply services which normally cater to locked down restaurants and pubs, through to protein supplement suppliers which would usually be supplying a network of indefinitely closed gyms – everyone has seen a rapid decline in their usual business – and have had to move quickly to create direct to consumer websites and business models.

Making the switch to Direct-to-Consumer

The switch from B2B to direct to consumer may feel like a daunting one, particularly for companies which have already developed a network and processes which support a B2B strategy. However, desperate times call for desperate measures – and there are ample opportunities for agile businesses to realign their offering.

While B2B has slowed down, consumer sales are only continuing to grow. Preparation is key to ensuring a smooth transition from B2B to direct sales. There are of course a few crucial steps which companies need to undertake before making this drastic change – most notably, ensuring their selling platform is prepared for customers.

How to fetch consumer sales

There are several tools which will make the direct-to-consumer switch more achievable, but chief among them is address verification.

Address verification is a useful tool for boosting your basket conversion, it speeds along address entry for your new audience of impatient consumer as they can just type a postcode or a few letters from their address. The address you get is guaranteed to be a real address and correctly formatted for delivery and courier services.

When selling to the wider consumer marketplace, it’s important that address details stored about a customer are accurate – even when the great general public make more mistakes than you would expect. This will help prevent costly delivery mistakes during an important transition – it is estimated that inaccurate addresses cost retailers over £1.6 billion every year¹. The average cost of replacing a lost parcel is £123.61 – replacement product, calls to customer services, administration costs, plus the general bad will that results from your customer not getting what they ordered.

It also gives buyers confidence that you can deliver on goods and services. This has an added benefit of improving your user experience and streamlining the jump from B2B to the unfamiliar new world of consumer sales.

Find out more about Fetchify’s address validation tools, Address Auto-Complete for worldwide addresses and Postcode Lookup for UK only , why not take a free 14-day trial and see how we can help your pivot to direct to consumer.

¹Valuing home delivery review 2018, IMRG and NetDespatch