E-commerce has seen steady growth for years, but after COVID-19 hit the world, online retails faced both new challenges and possibilities in developing their business. As a year after the start of the pandemic passed, the online sales landscape has changed dramatically. The avoidance of face-to-face contacts, store closures, and numerous coronavirus-related restrictions has forever changed customer behavior patterns. While the economy and society are undergoing a crucial shift, e-commerce merchants need to adjust their business strategy according to the new requirements.
Since more consumers turn to online shopping, digital transformation becomes inevitable for sellers who want to keep their business going and meet new customer demands. By adopting the latest technologies, implementing personalization techniques into the marketing strategy, and switching to more efficient supply chain practices, companies can achieve success in the upcoming years. To help you better understand in which direction to move and which activities to focus on, we’ve compiled a list of emerging e-commerce trends that are changing the business environment in 2021 and are expected to stay for the years to come. By understanding the expectations of a modern buyer and taking appropriate strategic actions a few steps ahead, it is possible to turn crisis times into an opportunity and ensure consistent business growth.
When it comes to company orders, you as a merchant should consider too many details regarding the matter. From comprehensible workflows to satisfying user experience — all the nuances from both the admin and company user sides. The order approval functionality supported by the purchase order payment has been developed to increase the quality of store services. At the same, order approval rules give clients additional control over each order placement and company credit.
In this post, we are going to take a closer look at the latest Magento 2 B2B enhancement.
Starting with a purchase order
Purchase order, or PO, is a type of quote that allows companies to make authorized purchases and brings extra credibility points to seller-buyer relationships. PO is a form of direct and clear communication between a customer and a merchant that:
Gives clients an opportunity to control the service quality (materials, price, quantity, shipping, etc.);
Helps store owners manage stock according to the current order and stay protected in case of order cancellation.
Purchase order is also used as a payment method within Magento 2 Commerce/Cloud to improve the checkout experience for orders that have been issued in advance.
Today the purchase order feature is actively used in B2B sphere. Implementing purchase orders into the Magento 2 platform is the answer to high user demand and another step in improving B2B management and shopping experience for both buyer and seller sides.
Enabling purchase order
Along with the ability to monitor order processing, purchase orders give company admins control over company buyers’ actions. As order approval serves the same purpose, the feature is tightly connected with purchase orders. So PO must be enabled in a store to allow for the order approval functionality to be available for commercial clients.
To activate purchase orders for the order approval functionality, go to Stores > B2B Features > Order Approval Configuration at your store backend.
For the purchase order as a payment method configuration follow the .
Once you have enabled the feature at a company level, make sure to do the same with the corresponding setting inside each company profile that you want to allow this type of order. Follow Customers > Companies > Select a company for editing > Edit at the Admin Sidebar to mark a company eligible to make purchase orders. Within the company page at the backend find the Advanced Settings section and then enable purchase orders.
These are the actions required from you as a store admin to provide clients with the ability to customize order workflow via approvals. The rest of the functionality logic shines upon user interaction from the frontend.
Exploring order approvals
Magento 2 order approval rules enhance the standard workflow and engage clients in order administration. By applying the approval to purchase orders, company admins and all company users with specified permission in their role can control purchases made by the account.
The greatest benefit of the new Magento 2 Commerce/Cloud feature is that using the approval system companies can execute their inside policy successfully and manage expenses without any additional risks.
In terms of workflow, order approval rules bring new steps to the order processing routine.
Based on the selected rule conditions, each purchase order undergoes automatic verification before being submitted.
After a purchase order is reviewed all the company users with the roles of approvers get a corresponding email notification.
Approvers decide whether to approve, decline, validate, or cancel the order if the PO falls under the specified approval rules. Upon approval, they submit the actual order.
Company admins can set approval rules of three types related to Order Total, Shipping Cost, and Number of SKUs. Customization of the rules relates to familiar Magento 2 conditions: more than, more or equals, less than, less or equals. Mixing rules and conditions one can get up to six variations and logic patterns.
Each order approval rule is created exclusively by commercial buyers from their accounts in the frontend. Thus, you as a merchant can provide unique service and reduce your own involvement in order processing.
Approval rule generation
Order approval rule generation is available upon logging in with a company account for admins or upon logging by users with a particular role and level of permission to manage the rules.
The corresponding tab appears in the account sidebar under the ‘Approval Rules’ title. Company users can create multiple approval rules for a single company, edit, and delete them.
Each approval rule requires specifying the name, role application, rule type, condition settings, and approver role. One can enable or disable the rule anytime as well as give the rule a short description or move on managing the rule without any notes.
The rule manager has to decide which of the existing company roles are applicable for order approval rules. ‘All roles’ or ‘Specific Roles’ (with the select option) are available for order approval rules within Magento 2.
The ‘Rule Type’ setting determines the approach which the functionality logic will use for a purchase order — based on the number of SKUs in the cart, order value, or shipping cost amount. The number of SKUs condition requires specifying the number, the other two rule types include inserting the service or product cost in a currency supported in your store.
In the ‘Require Approval From’ section, a company user can select company roles that will be responsible for managing each purchase order approval.
And that all needed from your clients to configure the order approval workflow in Magento 2. Just a few clicks and a prepared policy regarding company purchases will allow any client to arrange an automatic routine for purchase order management with minimum involvement required.
Magento 2 order approval rule import/export
Import and export of order approval rules are still a novelty in the market. However, FireBear has made them an upcoming feature of the Magento 2 Improved Import and Export extension to keep providing the best Magento 2 B2B management services to users across the globe. The ability to transfers order approval rules will be another powerful functionality within the module’s kit, so make sure to explore Improved Import and Export by the link below:
The Magento 2 SAP Business One integration is quite a complex subject since both systems are different from all possible angles. However, the ERP platform is designed to simplify your e-commerce business management duties, but you need to connect them before leveraging any benefits. In the article below, we continue our study of the Magento 2 SAP Business One system integration, focusing on negotiable quotes. If you are not familiar with the latter, it is a B2B entity of Magento 2 Commerce. Below, you will discover how to import/export negotiable quotes between Magento 2 and SAP Business One. Besides, we shed light on how the entity is represented in both systems. Continue Reading
The following article goes on with our exploration of the Magento 2 SAP Business One integration. This time, we focus on shared catalogs – a B2B entity of Magento 2. Below, you will discover how to transfer shared catalogs from Magento 2 to SAP Business One. Before going any further, let’s see how the entity is represented in both system integrations. Continue Reading
