Digital commerce for B2B

From product catalog to digital revolution in 10 years

In the last 10 years, marketing within the B2B market has gone from cold-calling and conferences to being based to a greater extent on digital initiatives which includes social media, e-books, inbound marketing and digital commerce. 
 
One reason for this is that half of B2B buyers in 2020 were millennials, almost twice as many as in 2012. So Generation X may prefer the physical interactions, but millennials expect the same personalized experiences in digital channels. So when the typical B2B customer changes, it is natural that the sales process and the expectations of you as a B2B player also change. 

Forrester reports that 74% of B2B customers research more than half of their work-related purchases digitally and 50% of this research is conducted from mobile according to BCG & Google. 

Not only do you have to change, you should also welcome the change  

It shouldn't be difficult for B2B players to find good arguments for investing in digital commerce, some of which we have experience with from our projects include:

• Your customers expect it from you, which is the most important argument 

• You can reduce costs considerably by serving more customers digitally 

• More self-service customers provide increased profitability for the company as a whole 

• Reach out to a larger market; The SME market can now become profitable by being handled primarily digitally 

• Let your salespeople focus their time on the most important customers 

• Let your salespeople work more on solution selling and less as living product catalogs 

• Gives you the opportunity to test out a hybrid strategy, with direct sales to consumer (DTC) 

• Streamline and automate manual tasks such as order processing 

• Easier to invest internationally with a digital sales channel 

What is hindering the B2B players?

So, if their customers expect it and the incentives to facilitate digital commerce are many, why is the B2B market lagging behind the B2C players in digital commerce so strongly? Our experience suggests that it is a combination of several factors: 
 

Uncertain ROI

Many have been worried that their customers will never use a digital commerce and that these are ingrained habits that never change. 
 

Complexity

Successful digital commerce for B2B represents complexity on a completely different level than what B2C players have to deal with. Typical challenges include customer-specific product catalogues, price and discount structure, customer accounts with different roles and access.

Forrester Research also points out that the most difficult thing for decision-makers in B2B was the work of integrating digital commerce with older internal legacy systems, such as ERP.

In addition, the vast majority of ecommerce platforms have primarily focused their product development to satisfy B2C actors within retail, so it has been difficult to find technology that is suitable for B2B-specific needs.

When the main focus has been on the B2C market, it has also been difficult to find e-commerce agencies with relevant B2B experience. 
 

Competitors 

When few of your competitors invest in digital commerce, you don't get the same "sense of urgency" as in the B2C market and it becomes easier not to do anything new. 
 

Risk 

With high complexity, few e-commerce platforms to choose from and few digitally mature competitors, it is natural that there are few managers who dare to invest significant time and money in digital commerce.

From actual challenges to empty excuses 

What were real challenges for B2B players just a few years ago are empty excuses today. 
 
The business model still consists of fundamentally higher complexity than B2C, but the prerequisites for solving these in a modern digital commerce are today very good, the market expects it from you, your competitors bet themselves, the risk is significantly reduced and there are many agencies with relevant experience that you can work with. 
 

The leader in B2B commerce

In 2017, Adobe Commerce launched a wide range of B2B-specific functionality as a standard part of the ecommerce platform. Overnight, you gained access to functionality that was previously only achievable with expensive tailor-made projects that few could afford. 
 
The investment in B2B produced immediate results for Adobe, which in 2017 and 2020 was ranked as Leader by Forrester Research in an evaluation of the best platforms for the B2B market. 
 
Choosing an eCommerce platform that is well-suited for B2B is crucial, but does not guarantee success in itself, because it is the combination of technology, process and relevant experience that makes the difference. 
 
Since 2017, we at PearlConvert have worked with many B2B players and today 45% of our customers are B2B players or hybrids.