Shopping has fundamentally changed over the last 30 years. Sites like eBay have given rise to Amazon, and now every store has its own digital storefront, giving unprecedented access to products from around the world.

All this action has led to a crowded market, which makes it hard for SMBs to stand out among the competition. In this industry, you can't just phone-in success (well, phones do play a big part, but we'll get into that later). Today, it's more important than ever to provide a high quality  customer journey to keep your customer base loyal. Below are a few tips that can help SMBs maximize their conversions by creating customer-focused customer journeys.

B2B? B2C? Try B2H!

It's estimated that 21% of all retail purchases in 2025 will be online. That's big business that companies of any size, from Enterprise to SMB, can't ignore. And while eCommerce is found across a range of business types, whether that's B2B, B2C, or some other acronym, eComm success can be measured best across B2H (or Business to Human).

In business, your eCommerce platform should make the customer journey as frictionless as possible, which means understanding that the end-user wants a consistent user experience -no matter the industry. According to Accenture, 82% of B2B buyers expect the same level of convenience as B2C shoppers. This includes simple navigation, smart design, a fast checkout, and most importantly, all the information they need in order to answer their questions and feel comfortable purchasing a product online. After all, whether it's a holiday shopper or a top decision maker for IT, we're all human and deserve the same level of user experience across the board.

Some easy ways to implement this are by providing easy-to-use tools that make the entire eComm experience more effective. Tools like advanced search, one-click reordering, and real-time inventory visibility will provide the same level of care for your B2B customers that B2C customers experience daily.

Prioritize Phone-First Thinking

Over 30% of the global population shops via mobile. That equates to 1.65 billion online shoppers globally. In the B2B market, 80% of buyers use mobile devices. It doesn't take a mathematician to tell you these are big numbers, just like it doesn't take a marketing expert to tell you where SMBs should be investing their resources.

Mobile offers a unique need for shoppers and buyers. As busy as people's lives are, both at work and at home, mobile access to your products and services is crucial. It's imperative for end users to be able to research and place orders on the go. SMBs should optimize their eCommerce offerings to include simple user interfaces, fast mobile responsiveness, and quick load times. That's right, today's shoppers and buyers have a need for speed. Studies show that even a

Make Product Information Crystal Clear

To facilitate more conversions, SMBs should provide detailed product information so customers can make more informed decisions. According to a Sana survey, 37% of users cite poor product information as the number one reason not to trust a web store.

SMBs can build trust with their customers by providing highly detailed product descriptions with plenty of supporting assets for users to peruse. These can include datasheets, informational videos, FAQs, infographics, or really anything that provides a full picture of your product or service. Transparency builds trust, and with millions of products floating in the eCommerce space, a little extra info can really make you stand out among the competition.

NSO: Never Stop Optimizing

Companies that lean heavily on customer analytics are 23 times more likely to outperform their competition. EComm success is about playing the long game, and that means going over your in-house customer data to identify where to improve and devoting resources to optimize the user journey.

This is especially important to SMBs, as larger companies often have whole teams dedicated to improving customer experiences across all channels. One of the ways SMBs are getting ahead is through the use of AI. Today's AI tools have the ability to analyze data at breakneck speeds, as well as deliver deep insights from customers' online behavior, like past searches, clicks, purchases, and more. When fed into current data-filtering tools, this data can be used to improve site performance, boost conversion rates, and leverage customer behavior to refine your sales approach.

Keep It Personal

Currently, 84% of eCommerce businesses are making AI the top product in their own shopping carts. And that's for a very good reason. Through advanced language models and machine learning, AI is already helping to pinpoint customer segments and personalize their customer journeys to their needs, whether that's in the form of new product recommendations or better pricing.

Within the last year, AI has been helping customers have better interactions with online storefronts with personalized recommendations in ways never thought possible, all thanks to machine learning.

AI smart searching can provide recommendations based on offline buying habits. Don't worry! AI is not standing behind you at the checkout line. Rather, advanced AI tools can tap into transactional data to help customers find additional products that are in line with their current searches. This can be used to find more affordable or better-quality items during a search and improve overall customer satisfaction.

I had the pleasure of talking a bit about eComm success and the many ways to improve the customer journey with my good friend and cohost, Kat Macomson, Global Digital Marketing Manager here at Cisco. In fact, we dedicated a whole episode of our podcast, 404 Script Not Found, to discussing the latest trends in SMB marketing and technology, from AI to the latest in wearable tech. We hope you give it a listen!