"Where and when does the penny drop regarding the necessity of B2B e-commerce? Is it when the numbers start to decline? Or is it when talent within an organization rises and indicates that the moment has come to take action? If you don’t do it now, the chances are high that you will miss the proverbial boat.
B2B Revenue in 2020
Forrester Research released a report earlier this year showing that e-commerce revenue for B2B in the U.S. will reach 780 billion dollars by the end of 2015. This is expected to rise to 1.13 trillion by 2020. Taken together, this is twice the revenue of the B2C sector, but it constitutes no more than 10 percent of the total revenue within the B2B industry. More than 74 percent of B2B-related buyers initially search online, and 30 percent of these searchers actually make purchases via the web.
Make a plan for the upcoming period of process changes and prepare your organization for this.
Making Money Through B2B E-commerce
This same research indicates that online researching B2B visitors and buyers tend to spend more, and you will save money ***** if you allow your business partners to place their orders online. This obviously reduces a lot of manual work, and you ***** can automate as much as you want. Experience shows that companies that consciously invest early in e-commerce win overall in terms of revenue growth. I see more and more companies becoming aware of this and wanting to take action.
Change is Necessary
If you are considering making the leap to e-commerce with your B2B-focused organization, don’t take this too lightly. You have something ahead of you, and the organization must be ready for it. Many of the existing processes will need to change or even disappear altogether. However, don’t handle this too radically. Make a plan for the upcoming period on how you want to manage this change, involve key individuals within your organization early in the process, and seek good advice where necessary.
Stay Updated!
Don’t think that once you have an online sales channel, you’re done. Even within B2B, we are dealing with people. Just like in B2C, it is equally important in B2B to focus on usability, experience, and not to forget traffic, conversion, and retention. With the increasing number of providers - which will only grow - it is important to stay ahead. Your platform, offerings, and content must be current and remain so; your marketing channels should be optimally utilized, and don’t forget to keep communicating with your customer. If something is wrong, they will want to share this with you.
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