By TP Sharafudheen
The e-commerce industry is tightening its hold on corporate buying and selling segment. B2B commerce is one of the preferable purchasing gateways for many corporate buyers. As reports indicate, two-thirds of corporate buying in some countries now rely on digital and remote channels.
Nearly two-thirds of B2B companies across industries now offer e-commerce facilities. Spurred by the massive wave in digital adoption over the past two years, sellers have accelerated their digital timetables. Some researches show that e-commerce now drives more than 18 percent of all revenue for the average B2B company.
There are many reasons for this. The new technical features of customer-care applications help customers in B2B e-commerce transactions like online chat and adoption of video conferencing. More than 50 percent of B2B companies now provide these features. More B2B companies are investing in this.
The majority of B2B companies are treating e-commerce as a full-service channel. They believe that they can offer better levels of excellence in product and service availability, pricing, performance guarantees, shipping and delivery, and personalised recommendations based on various analytical reports and business intelligence.
Some business analysis reports explain that 15 percent of corporate decision-makers are comfortable making purchases worth more than $1 million online. The companies which already believe in complete digital transformation say that digital marketplaces is an important part of the purchasing mix. Sixty percent of B2B buyers indicate that they are open to purchasing on digital marketplaces, roughly the same percentage as those who buy from supplier-branded websites.
Almost all leading brands are directly entering the B2B e-commerce business. It has become a fact that without a B2B e-commerce plan, brands can’t attract buyers. Surveys explain that rather than seeing marketplaces as an afterthought, close to one in five B2B companies has already built one, either directly or through partnerships, and another 60 percent are in the process of doing so.
The financial reports are mind-blowing. In 2020, the global B2B e-commerce market size was valued at $6.64 trillion and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.7 percent from 2021 to 2028.
Though some e-commerce experts feel that B2B buyers are a tad slow to adapt to e-commerce, the reality is, many B2B brands are increasingly looking for digital ways to boost sales—a move driven by the success of Amazon’s business, and the changing B2B buyer demographic.
In general, almost all the companies are focusing to spend on digital space as their marketing activities. To convert these efforts to sales/business, it is imperative that they turn their commerce experience online. This is the social and cultural background for the unprecedented boom in B2B e-commerce.
