Five B2B E-Commerce Trends To Watch

The past year hasn’t been easy for B2B businesses, but many are remarkably bullish about the future. That’s especially true when it comes to building out e-commerce operations: According to a Febraury 2023 survey from Digital Commerce 360, e-commerce platforms and applications are one of the top three technology investment priorities for B2B sellers in 2023.

That’s a sign that pandemic-era investments in e-commerce have paid big dividends for B2B sellers—and the trend is only increasing. In fact, as of last April, McKinsey forecasts that online sales will account for 31% of total B2B sales by 2024, up from 20%.

Still, building out a future-proof e-commerce stack during lean times isn’t easy. Leaders need to ensure they’re spending effectively and making investments that will position them for rapid growth. With these factors in mind, here are five technology areas where B2B leaders will be directing their investments in 2023.

Offer a consumer-grade sales experience.

Self-service portals are increasingly important for B2B sellers. Per Digital Commerce 360, nearly a third of respondents derive more than half of their revenue from self-service digital channels. That’s a sign that B2B leaders are recognizing that their customers now expect consumer-grade online experiences with robust tools enabling them to track orders and manage their accounts.

To attract new customers—and keep existing ones—B2B brands are investing in self-service tools such as chatbots that can provide quick answers to customer questions. Such tools can drive shortened sales cycles and increase customer retention. Beefed-up self-service capabilities also give B2B firms access to powerful customer data, which can be leveraged to finetune their revenue pipeline and leads and to allocate resources intelligently.

Make sure, though, your self-service tools are synchronized to ensure data interoperability. For example, customer preferences indicated in their conversations with AI chatbots should be updated in your CRM tool and ultimately be baked into their overall customer experience on your site.

Elevate the customer experience.

Loyal customers are key to growth, so B2B sellers are increasingly bringing a customer-centric mindset to their e-commerce initiatives, with McKinsey offering that "putting the customer at the heart of growth" as a top recommendation. Improving the customer experience means more than just improving customer service—it means optimizing and enriching all the interactions a B2B buyer has with a company’s people, products and digital assets.

One key way to achieve this is by personalizing the customer experience. In the B2B space, each customer has unique needs and goals, and smart sellers use their e-commerce offering to surface customized products and pricing, tailor shipping options to each customer’s situation, and even offer bespoke payment terms for different enterprise buyers.

Automate key business processes.

Business process automation is another hot area of B2B e-commerce investment, with a third of B2B companies citing streamlining and automating processes as a key e-commerce strategy area that they're considering implementing, according to the the Digital Commerce 360 study. The potential for streamlined sales, ordering, fulfillment and other back-office processes is extremely attractive, and improved website performance can help to increase traffic and reduce bounce rates.

Since so much of e-commerce is process-driven, there are numerous ways to utilize automation, spanning everything from inventory and distribution to sales and marketing. B2B firms need to take a holistic view of their business in order to determine exactly how to optimize its benefits and integrate their e-commerce tools into their broader business systems and technology stack.

Forge resilient and flexible IT infrastructure.

Sudden growth sounds like good news, but it can cause headaches unless B2B firms are prepared for it. That’s why building flexible, resilient and scalable IT systems will be critical as merchants emerge from the downturn and seek new growth opportunities.

API-driven headless e-commerce tools can help to maximize flexibility by enabling business applications to work together seamlessly while also giving B2B firms the flexibility to change customer-facing factors without rewiring their backend infrastructure. Headless architecture can also reduce latency and load times as traffic increases, helping to ensure that B2B buyers aren’t kept waiting as e-commerce portals grow more popular. It's incumbent upon your IT teams, though, to make sure that all the APIs are updated frequently and integrated nicely together at all times to avoid performance conflicts.

Fine-tune B2B marketplace strategies.

Marketplaces are now the fastest-growing sales channel in B2B e-commerce, according to Digital Commerce 360. In 2021, marketplaces grew nearly 7.5 times faster than total B2B e-commerce sales. Amazon Business alone, which accounted for 1.9% of U.S. B2B e-commerce sales in 2021, is likely to account for about 10% by 2025. Selling through marketplaces can drive increased sales, but it also requires e-commerce infrastructure that’s capable of managing the unique demands of marketplace selling.

Many B2B firms were initially hesitant to work with marketplace models, fearing margin compression and channel disruption, but these concerns have largely subsided. While marketplaces can be a key driver of growth for some B2B firms, they aren’t necessarily a good fit for every brand or business.

Be smart, but don’t play it safe.

What’s the takeaway from these trends? First, having a robust e-commerce capability is no longer an optional extra for B2B merchants. Brands that haven’t already built out their digital commerce operations should work to do so or risk being left behind.

Second, we’re entering a new phase in which simply selling online is no longer enough. Today’s B2B buyers are increasingly sophisticated and demanding. Merchants need to provide polished, personalized and dependable online experiences if they want to compete in an increasingly globalized B2B ecosystem.

Perhaps most importantly, B2B leaders are now learning a vital lesson: When the going gets tough, you can’t weather the storm simply by hunkering down. Businesses that play things too safe won't have the infrastructure they need to weather the storm or to exploit emerging opportunities. In 2023, B2B leaders will need to get smart and invest their resources—carefully, but not too conservatively—in the technologies and infrastructure needed to drive new efficiencies and new value both now and going forward.

Source: Forbes

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