Businesses today are under more pressure than ever to find cost-effective solutions and streamline purchasing processes. In the past, businesses relied mainly on establishing in-person relationships with their buyers. Today, B2B commerce has moved to online relationships – placing orders online. With procurement systems, businesses can cost-effectively streamline their procurement process. Punchout catalogs simply is a way to facilitate online selling for businesses using commerce procurement solutions. In this blog, we are going to discuss the key punchout catalogs’ benefits to your business.
In fact, in today’s digital world, buyers require their suppliers to integrate their eCommerce platform with the buyer’s procurement system. Simply they need them to be “Punchout” ready. But what does that mean?
What is a Punchout Catalog?
A Punchout Catalog is a method for a business to buy from their supplier’s website from within their procurement application or hosted eProcurement system.
A Punchout catalog is simply a catalog that resides on a supplier’s eCommerce site. But is viewable by customers who are using their own company’s procurement applications to make purchases. It uses a tool that redirects buyers from their procurement application to the supplier’s website. In other words, a buyer “punches out” a procurement application to the original site. Whereas the buyer can access the supplier’s catalog and can add or remove items to the shopping cart.
How Does It Work?
Punchout catalogs work via an integration between a procurement platform and an eCommerce application. To clarify, software “translates or mediates” between each platform. Purchase order information flows seamlessly between the buyers to the seller’s platforms. Typically punchout catalogs are built on eCommerce applications such as BigCommerce. An integration layer handles communication between both the eCommerce application and a procurement platform.
In essence, a PunchOut catalog is a web-based catalog. It contains the customer’s unique contract items, and prices, as well it is created specifically to connect and interface with a company’s procurement system or purchasing software. The PunchOut catalog connects to a buyer’s procurement system via data transfer protocols, (a computer code) and appears in the buyer’s system much like a typical supplier catalog web page.
What are the key benefits of Punchout Catalogs for B2B Businesses?
A key benefit of the punchout catalog solution is that it will automatically synchronize requisitions and purchase orders seamlessly between procurement and B2B eCommerce applications of the buyer. Most importantly, this solution offers a customizable purchasing experience for the buyer. Subsequently, this is a key factor for retaining satisfied loyal customers.
Certainly, a punchout catalog is considered a robust, affordable solution that offers great flexibility to both suppliers and buyers. To clarify, punchout catalogs make it much easier for buyers to search, browse, compare, and buy products from supplier eCommerce stores; without leaving the controlled environment of their procurement or ERP application.
We are going to shed some light on some of the key benefits of punchout catalogs for buyers and suppliers in handling their B2B business.
Benefits For Buyers:
- Reduces manual errors & ensures accuracy for data provided to the buyer.
- Provides real-time data for buyers. For example, it reflects instantly updates made by the supplier for the products, promotions, and discounts in the interface used by the buyer.
- Saves both time and cost. That is to say, businesses manage spending by consolidating procurement data and processes.
- Makes searching for products a lot easier and faster for the buyer.
Benefits For Suppliers:
- Facilities the selling process easily online.
- Provides a cost-effective solution for selling to buyers. Punchout catalogs allow B2B suppliers to integrate their catalog with buyers’ back-end platforms with minimal labor and expense.
- Increases business potential. Punchout is a great way to attract new buyers. Thus, they can qualify for large contracts.
A Fully Integrated B2B, B2C, D2C and B2B2C Solution for Headless Commerce Platform.
Equipped with a Punchout Solution for connecting suppliers to buyers by providing Flexible & Fast Integration, Order & Invoice Solutions
B2B Connect-Punchout Solution Key Features:
- Advanced Product Catalog
- Punch out cXML
- Punchout Auto-login
- Seamless Integration
In short, today purchasing is made a lot easier with punchout catalogs. Many B2B buyers rely on procurement in handling their purchases. Certainly, if you want to compete in today’s market and do business with larger clients such as Fortune 1000 and government organizations. Thus, your business needs to integrate the Punchout Solution to leverage its benefits. DigiCommerce can help you to have seamless punchout integration to your headless platform. On the other hand, DigiCommerce experts can guide you to future-proof your commerce platform by implementing the right B2B solutions that scale alongside your business needs.