The latest B2B Buyer Report from Avionos has some powerful takeaways for B2B companies. Avionos surveyed B2B buyers in several industries and found a heightened sense of pain when it comes to purchasing from suppliers.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the report—and what they mean for companies running SAP ERP.

85% of B2B buyers will drop suppliers with bad digital experiences

Yes, you read that right.

85% of B2B buyers will find a new supplier if your digital experience doesn’t meet their needs.

While that may be hard to digest, it’s worth analyzing every step of your buying journey and how it looks in your B2B eCommerce solution (if you have one). Here are just a few key components of a great digital experience in B2B:

• 100% accurate real-time inventory from SAP ERP
• 100% accurate contract pricing from SAP ERP
• 100% accurate, real-time order history and status from SAP ERP
• 100% accurate real-time credit status from SAP
• Self-service payments (both at checkout, and to pay off invoices online)

When you look at it like this, it’s easy to see why B2B buyers walk away from an experience that doesn’t offer essential functionality.

But it gets worse before it gets better. Generally speaking, suppliers are not meeting their customers’ needs in B2B eCommerce.

97% of buyers are fed up with suppliers’ lackluster eCommerce technology

This number is especially startling. Customers turn to you for your products, right? Won’t they do what it takes to buy from you?

Yes and no.

They turn to you for overall value. The greatest product in the world becomes less valuable if doing business with the supplier causes more trouble than it’s worth.

So where do you stand? Your customers might be fed up if:

• They can expect a callback after placing an online order because a certain SKU is actually backordered, even though the website said it was available.
• They can expect customer service to reach out because their B2B eCommerce order was priced wrong and they already paid with a credit card. Now the customer will have to get a refund and place a new order, with correct pricing, through a customer service rep—which makes you wonder why you’re doing B2B eCommerce at all.
• They get a callback because they ordered a discontinued SKU, and the B2B eCommerce store didn’t automatically substitute the new SKU.
• Customer service reaches out because the customer bought an SKU that they’re not allowed to buy. The B2B eCommerce store made this possible because it doesn’t enforce business rules from SAP ERP, which specify what each customer can buy.

Your portal is just as important as Google Search in the purchasing journey

This one might surprise some people. 

Avionos reports that when B2B buyers look to start a purchasing journey, their first preference is tied between supplier portals and Google Search.

You read that right. Your branded B2B portal or eCommerce website is just as important as Google for getting your customers back into the purchasing funnel.

Customers might start with a Google search—or they might head straight to your portal.

Clearly, it’s essential to get this right.

But getting it right is tough for SAP companies. Buyers need an exceptional cross-channel experience with consistent, real-time data across all channels. That means your B2B portal or eCommerce store needs direct, real-time integration to SAP ERP. (Hint: That’s why we built the Corevist Platform.)

Operational efficiency is top of mind for B2B buyers

Avionos found that B2B buyers are making efficiency a top priority next year. They don’t have time or energy to go back and forth with customer service reps or engage in confusing, manual processes to get orders built and placed.

But whether they’re going to order through eCommerce, EDI, phone, or email, they need one thing: Consistent information across channels.

Maybe they want to check pricing and availability before placing an EDI order. In that case, the B2B portal or eCommerce store needs to display 100% accurate pricing and availability. It needs to account for personalized pricing rules and ATP (available to promise).

Maybe customers want to check their credit status before placing an online order. In that case, B2B eCommerce won’t do them much good if it can’t show real-time credit status from SAP ERP.

Maybe they want to see if their entire order has shipped, or if that crucial line item is still backordered. In that case, the B2B portal had better show real-time status for orders, line items, and shipments.

The key: Deep SAP integration

In all these scenarios, there’s one thing that makes a supplier portal stand out from the crowd.

It’s real-time, personalized data.

That means personalized pricing, availability, product permissions, catalogs, and more—not to mention detailed account information like credit, orders, invoices, and payments.

To win with B2B eCommerce, you need to offer all this and more in your portal. That’s why the Corevist Platform is built on a comprehensive, real-time integration to SAP ERP.