B2B commerce is in the middle of a tectonic shift. Buyers have become increasingly indistinguishable from consumers, adapting similar attitudes, behaviors, and expectations. This isn’t exactly surprising in the golden age of Amazon:
But what happens when products in your inventory or lengthy sales cycles are at odds with those easy, breezing shopping experiences buyers want? You’re not exactly selling tupperware here. From where we’re standing, you have three options:
Heading into 2024, we’ve noticed a recurring emphasis on customer-centricity in B2B ecommerce. This indicates distributors working to reconcile their vendors’ complex products with rapidly evolving customer expectations. Here are three B2B ecommerce trends we’re most excited about — and how they can help you get ahead of the competition.
Trend #1: Leveraging third-party sellers
Trend #2: Unlocking deeper customer insights
Trend #3: Overhauling product data with generative AI
Trend #4: Reimagining commerce for sustainability
Trend #5: Consumer-style shipping and delivery
B2B ecommerce adoption has skyrocketed right alongside buyer expectations — 51% of businesses that report at least $1 billion in revenue have ecommerce capabilities.
However, it’s not just the scale of ecommerce expanding, but the actual order size. Leveraging third-party sellers enables distributors to expand their product catalogs, without taking on the inventory risk.
Two primary models — dropshipping and marketplaces — bypass hefty distribution costs, logistics, inventory, and potentially poor market-fit decisions. At the same time, businesses can expand their offerings and establish long-term relationships with suppliers to secure discounts on products, reducing the cost of goods, and ultimately boost profit margins.
In fact, the study we commissioned with Forrester Consulting found that, on average, distributors who launched a marketplace saw:
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The good news is dropshipping and marketplaces aren’t mutually exclusive. Depending on what makes sense for your business, you can leverage one or both of the models.
Seventy-seven percent of businesses are already using or exploring AI — and for good reason. It’s the only way to meet buyer demands at scale. According to Salesforce, 73% of all customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations — up from 66% in 2020.
This can be a tall order. Buyers and consumers may share the same desire for hyper-personalized, effortless, shopping experiences, but the actual order process is dramatically different. Just think about your typical B2B purchases. We’re talking:
Subsequently, B2B companies are now looking at their ecommerce function with more nuance than mere shopping cart transactions. B2B ecommerce sites play a much more significant role than facilitating checkouts — from driving leads, sustaining extensive research, and ultimately generating sales, even if the final touchpoint is offline.
With such a varied and vast array of customer interactions throughout the sales cycle, it’s impossible to offer truly personalized experiences using traditional data analytics. Just 8% of B2B organizations are set up to deliver highly personalized marketing and sales. That’s where AI comes in — specifically, Machine Learning algorithms capable of collecting, measuring, and analyzing infinite data around customer engagement and behavior. These deeper, richer insights can significantly boost the customer experience through:
Generative AI — algorithms that can create and modify data — is another innovation gaining serious ground in B2B commerce. Sure, it’s still early days. ChatGPT, arguably the most famous generative AI application, was only released in 2022. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a game-changer for businesses — especially when it comes to product data.
Only 7% of distributors are “extremely satisfied” with the quality and completeness of their product data. Part of the issue is that expansive product catalogs make it difficult to ensure data quality and consistency — especially with manual inputs. Another challenge for marketplaces specifically is that with multiple vendors, each is individually responsible for providing and maintaining their own product data.
The result can turn into a perfect storm of:
Lackluster data doesn’t just cause administrative bloat, but can directly undermine the customer experience — for instance, if a buyer places an order based on incorrect product dimensions. AI can help mitigate these risks by automatically:
In fact, generative AI can supercharge your entire marketplace search function.
Sustainable practices improve efficiency while simultaneously reducing waste, risks, cost, and overall damage to the planet. This is becoming increasingly critical as more governments establish regulations to hold businesses accountable for their operations and reduce pressure on natural resources. One of the better known examples is the circular economy action plan implemented by the EU in 2020.
This model turns the traditional production cycle on its head, shifting from take, make, and dispose to reuse, recycle, and recover. Sustainable commerce offers numerous benefits, including:
Marketplaces are often a vehicle used to drive circular economy practices, as the platform model offers the opportunity to connect buyers and sellers. Take Toyota’s “Certified Used” program for example. The company’s resale marketplace for used vehicles reduces waste while also allowing Toyota to capitalze on the resale market.
Traditionally, B2B fulfillment has meant bulk orders delivered on a fixed schedule. However, buyers now expect the same level of convenience and flexibility they receive from B2C online stores. As consumers, we're accustomed to last mile delivery — which looks like shipping providers like DHL, UPS, or FedEx dropping a package off at your door. Whereas B2B relies on third-party logistics which typically offers full truck load or less than truckload (LTL) carriers.
Fortunately, many solutions for last mile delivery are popping up, enabling B2B companies to meet the demands of their customers. Plus, LTL carriers are doing a better job providing consistent updates on delivery status.
This allows B2B distributors to expand their shipping options to offer:
Words of wisdom have repeatedly cautioned us: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. While this may be sage advice in some scenarios, rapidly evolving buyer expectations turning B2B ecommerce on its head isn’t one of them. In 2024, customer experience is the name of the game — now more than ever, with an overcrowded market. There are more than 26 million ecommerce sites globally — more than double than in 2020.
As the lines between B2B buyers and consumers become continually blurred, innovating new ways to meet or exceed expectations will be critical.
So how do you know which strategy or solution will be the right fit for your business? Start by asking yourself:
The good news is that there’s no wrong answer — and many roads lead to Rome.
Just remember, if you don’t provide an outstanding customer experience, someone else will.
