What Do Customers Consider Important in B2B Websites?

Offering Appropriate Information Technologies at Different Stages in the Customer Service Life Cycle for Improved Service Delivery

“…Unlike B2C marketplaces, B2B buying situations typically involve different decision-makers along the life cycle. This means the person who makes decisions in the requirements stage may be different from the person who actually purchases the service in the acquisition stage [67].…”

A framework to localize international business to business web sites

“…In B2B literature most studies have looked into specific B2B web design characteristics or addressed localization issues from cultural adaptation perspective (Chakraborty, Lala and Warren, 2003;Lord and Collins, 2002;Usunier, Roulin and Ivens, 2009;Usunier and Roulin, 2010). More specifically, past studies in the field of web localization can be divided into four broad categories: studies providing general usability guidelines for international user interface design (Becker, 2002;Esselink, 2000;Nielsen and Del Galdo, 1996;Cyr and Trevor-Smith, 2004), studies proposing general frameworks for developing international web sites (Al-Bade and Mayhew, 2010;Al-Badi and Naqvi, 2010;Becker, 2002;Becker and Crespo, 2001;Dou et al, 2002;Singh, 2012;Singh et al, 2009), surveys and studies pertaining user perception of international web sites and international online user profiles (Baack and Singh, 2007;Nantel and Glaser, 2008;Wallace and Yu, 2009;Singh et al, 2006;Singh, 2012), and studies that have specifically explored how to culturally localize web sites (Barber and Badre, 1998;Baack and Singh, 2007;Cyr and Lew, 2003;Cyr and Trevor-Smith, 2004;Singh and Pereira, 2005;Singh, et al, 2009;Usunier, et al, 2009;Usunier and Roulin, 2010).…”

“…Chakraborty et al, 2003;Dou et al, 2002;Lord and Collins, 2002) have identified important B2B web design characteristics related to personalization, transactional ease, product information presentation, product quality and certification information, technical support, corporate citizenship, pricing information etc. These studies show that B2B web sites design characteristics tend to be different from B2C web design, due to the unique B2B context.…”

“…Thus, to create a sense of relationship companies not only need online mechanisms to enhance personalization, but also need to reduce perceived risk of opportunism. Thus, based on the review of the literature the following items were identified for building online relationship-specific investments: availability of dedicated web services using extranets, intranets, ERP software, web site personalization, and transactional security for reducing perceived risk (Bart, et al, 2005;Chakraborty et al, 2003;Chen et al, 2003;Pavolu, 2002;Usunier and Roulin, 2010;Wilson and Abel, 2002) (Table 2.2). …”

“…Review of past research found only a few studies that have attempted to study web site localization efforts (Cyr and Lew, 2003;Singh and Boughton, 2005;Singh and Pereira, 2005;Singh et al 2009;Cyr and Trevor-Smith, 2004;Tixier, 2005) and these studies primarily focused on business to consumer (B2C) context or general ecommerce. Some B2B studies have examined B2B web design characteristics and the role of culture in B2B web design, but have not proposed a comprehensive framework for localizing B2B web sites (Chakraborty, Lala and Warren, 2003;Lord and Collins, 2002;Usunier, Roulin and Ivens, 2009;Usunier and Roulin, 2010). In fact, Lichtenthal and Shay (2003) note that to build a general theory of B2B Internet integration, we should build knowledge of emerging patterns in B2B web activity.…”