$1 Trillion in B2B Ecommerce

B2B ecommerce is growing, and that growth is outstripping expert predictions. Are you part of the revolution?

In 2017, Forrester Research famously predicted that the total B2B ecommerce market would hit $1 trillion by 2019. Last week, the leading market research firm updated their predictions with some startling new findings:

• B2B ecommerce should hit $1 trillion by the end of 2018 (not 2019).
• B2B ecommerce will represent 12% of total B2B sales in the US by the end of 2018.
• Those numbers should rise to $1.8 trillion and 17% of all sales by 2023.

Obviously, manufacturers are responding to buyer demands and market pressures to transform the customer experience through ecommerce. But what do these predictions mean for manufacturers who haven’t launched ecommerce yet?

Here are 3 takeaways from this milestone in market growth.

1. Your competition is moving online

As Forrester’s startling growth statistics demonstrate, the B2B ecommerce tide is rising. More and more manufacturers are launching digital platforms to manage the customer experience.

That pressure is real, and it throws down the gauntlet for manufacturers to create the best customer journey possible. How will your ecommerce solution stack up against your competition? Here are 4 key high-level features which you should demand in an ecommerce platform to create the best possible customer experience. (Hint: Corevist Commerce covers them all.)

• Intuitive product search.
• Accurate scaled and contract pricing.
• Accurate inventory, ATP, and RDD displayed live from SAP.
• 100% accurate orders posted to SAP (with intelligent error messages returned to the user to help them craft the perfect order).

When you provide all of this through a self-service ecommerce platform, your customers will find it easy to do business with you. That improved customer experience translates into repeat purchases and a better bottom line.

2. Your customers would rather buy online

63% of B2B buyers research half or more of their work purchases online, while 43% want to buy directly from manufacturers whenever possible. (See this post for more: What B2B Buyers Want.)

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Amazon revolution has penetrated the lives of all consumers, including the professionals who buy from you while they’re at work. Self-service ecommerce is easier and faster than looking up SKUs in a print catalog, then calling, emailing, or faxing an order to Customer Service.

When you choose a solution like Corevist Commerce, that self-service ordering is guaranteed to be 100% SAP-ready. In other words, you can say goodbye to back-and-forth between your customers and CSRs to fix problem orders. That’s great news for you and your buyers.

3. Manufacturers should choose agile, scalable ecommerce solutions

As market pressure grows on manufacturers, the massive, multi-year ecommerce project is becoming less and less viable. Ecommerce technology has matured to the point that it shouldn’t take astronomical budgets and geological timeframes to get your customers to buy online. Manufacturers need a quick win—and yet, they need a permanent solution, too, one that’s a sound investment with demonstrable ROI.

The answer is an agile, scalable ecommerce platform like Corevist Commerce.

We understand that manufacturers may find ecommerce intimidating, especially when it comes to rich content for product catalogs. That’s why we built Corevist Commerce to scale when you’re ready. You can launch an SAP-integrated ordering portal now, without a catalog, and start taking orders from your power users (professional buyers who are used to ordering by SKU).

Then, when you’re ready, you can roll out a catalog, fully integrated with your portal and with SAP, to offer superb product findability, promotions, and more to customer segments who need them. That way, you get in the ecommerce game now, as the market is growing, and you have the option to scale and enter new markets without rebuilding your SAP integration from scratch.  

Moving forward: FREE case study

Wondering what it looks like to launch ecommerce, then scale up with a product catalog? Download this FREE case study on Mannington Mills. You’ll learn how this manufacturer added a catalog with rich content to their Corevist Commerce portal and grew ecommerce sales by 150%.

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