7 B2B Ecommerce Trends You Need to Follow for 2022 and Beyond

In 2020, the global B2B ecommerce market size was valued at USD 6.64 trillion and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7% from 2021 to 2028.

Despite being slow to adopt ecommerce, B2B brands are increasingly looking to digital means to boost sales — a move driven by the success of Amazon Business and the changing B2B buyer demographic.

In 2020, close to half of B2B buyers are millennials — nearly double the amount from 2012.

As the “typical” B2B buyer changes, a business’ sales process should too.

Where a Gen X buyer may prefer the handheld experience that a sales rep can provide, millennials expect that same personalised experience through streamlined, digital channels.

That leaves merchants to decipher the modern B2B buyer’s needs, without much available guidance.

Prior to 2020, the B2B audience was made up of baby boomers and members of Generation X. Baby boomers preferred getting their information from data sheets, sales literature and product trials. On the other hand, Gen X sought information from trade shows, conferences and print ads.

Today, 73% of millennials are involved in the B2B buying process. This generation has puzzled many, but they hold some distinguishing characteristics that explain how and why they operate. Millennials grew up alongside technology and as many as 38% of them admit to buying the latest gadgets.

All of this lends itself to how this group of B2B customers views marketing efforts.

In the years leading up to 2010, traditional marketing included cold calling, collateral and trade shows. Experts knew that these physical marketing efforts were being phased out and digital efforts, such as ebooks and social media, were on the rise.

Today's B2B buyer conducts approximately 12 online searches before making a purchase from a specific brand. In response, 55% of B2B marketing budgets are directed toward digital efforts that help provide a more personalised buying experience.

Many businesses are also looking at AI to gain a competitive advantage through chatbots and search marketing. Augmented reality (AR) is also becoming part of the picture. By 2022, it's expected that 25% of enterprises will launch AR and another 70% will experiment with it.

Only about 23% of B2B retailers with an ecommerce channel still accept fax orders.  

That number is much lower in comparison to the three most popular payment arenas:

• Website: 80%.
• Email: 77%.
• Phone: 72%.

On the rise are mobile apps and marketplaces like Amazon — a clear sign B2B retailers are moving quickly from nascent ecommerce channel experimentation to full omni-channel sales approaches.

Credit cards still reign supreme for the online channel (94%), though checks, terms, and purchase orders remain vital for B2B buyers (51%, 53%, 50%, respectively).

On the rise are mobile wallets like Amazon Pay and Apple Pay (26%).

In all, B2B retailers are not as new to online sales as the ecommerce industry makes them out to be.

In 2018 already, most B2B retailers (78%) were selling online for at least 2-5 years, or longer.

Let's take a look at the numbers backing today's top B2B trends.

As many as 50% of B2B companies prefer blogging as a marketing strategy, while 40% look to sending email newsletters and creating social media content. Digital methods of content marketing have replaced print ads and brochures, and B2B audiences are finding brands across many different channels.

More than 30% of content demand comes from audiences in IT, followed by executives, HR, marketing and education. This is a 3% increase from last year, but should come as no surprise given that technology continues to grow and is an area of interest for many businesses.

B2B buyers expect various digital efforts from vendors, including:

• 45% want personalised portal content.
• 44% are looking for an easy-to-use ROI calculator.
• 38% seek AR options.
• 33% want video chat options.

According to a survey conducted by Isoline in 2019, 53% of B2B decision makers said video was the most useful form of content, followed closely by case studies.

While the sales funnel was once very straightforward, now 90% of B2B buyers enter, exit and reenter the funnel at various points.

As much as 80% of B2B buying decisions are based on a buyer’s direct or indirect customer experience, and only 20% is based on the price or the actual offering.

B2Bs have their work cut out for them this year. We've listed the top B2B ecommerce trends to master in order to see business success.

1. Focus on creating B2C-like experiences for shoppers.
2. Acceleration of online marketplaces.
3. Companies are embracing B2B mobile commerce.
4. Growing expectations of B2B customer personalisation.
5. Launching a DTC Channel.
6. Integration of systems for multi-channel selling.
7. Demand for fast B2B order fulfillment.

In 2018, online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba.com, Etsy and Catch dominated the retail B2C industry, accounting for more than 50% of global online retail sales.

On the other hand, B2B ecommerce sales through websites and online marketplaces are accelerating and growth is at an all-time high. Only 6% of B2B buyers do not currently use online marketplaces and 75% of B2B procurement spending is projected to happen via an online marketplace within the next five years.

According to Gartner, the enterprise marketplace is a new business model that creates wider ecosystems, has new capabilities, and allows brands to generate new sources of revenue. Marketplaces are more efficient in time and cost, as they serve as a one-stop-shop for B2B buyers. 

One of the best advantages of B2B marketplaces is their ability to attract new, engaged audiences. Not only can this mean more sales, but it's also an opportunity to reach global markets and test new products.

Here’s some recent B2B research and data from Google and BCG that indicates the importance of a seamless mobile experience for B2B customers:

• 50% of B2B queries today are made on smartphones. BCG expects that figure to grow to 70% by 2020.
• Mobile drives, or influences, an average of over 40% of revenue in leading B2B organisations.

What does this data suggest?

Beyond getting your B2B business online, it needs to be mobile-friendly first.

Let’s talk more about that.

BCG visualises Doom Loop thinking like this:

Overall, this type of thinking has kept many B2B brands from launching online to begin with.

It comes down to this:

• Fear of lack of experience in a new channel or medium.
• Paralyzation based on fear about a new channel or medium.
• Loss of revenue due to laggard activity.

You don’t want to be in that boat. After all, BCG’s research also found that brands who are quick to adopt mobile see increased revenue through the channel in comparison to those who wait to catch up.

This might be the last B2B ecommerce trend on our list, but it is arguably the most important.

Some brands, like Atlanta Lightbulbs, have even gone so far to create a digital commerce app for their B2B buyers.

This allows those buyers to log in and see their specific pricing and checkout using a vaulted credit card — all in a matter of minutes. This is how you embrace B2B mobile commerce.

And they aren’t the only ones.

About 15% of B2B retailers reported having and using an existing app for their customers.

Why? Because a mobile app enables faster-recurring orders based on the business account. Additionally, the app can connect with your sales team for on-the-go sales that sync with your systems.

Research has found that 50% of B2B buyers identified improved personalisation as a key feature when searching for online suppliers with whom to build relationships, with consumers spending 48% more when their experience is personalised.

The customer experience management market is expected to double, reaching $14.9 billion by 2025. B2B customers want the same impressive experience that B2C shoppers are getting — and brands can't deny it.

To fully personalise B2B buying experiences, brands must take advantage of customer data, AI and machine learning. 

For many B2Bs, their employee experience might be a good starting point to create a unique experience. Many employees are working remotely now, and creating an online experience for them will empower and encourage them to provide better customer service.

According to a survey by The Direct Selling Association UK in late 2020, its member companies had seen 45.5% growth in sales, on average, through the direct channel for the year to date. This makes DTC competitors one of the biggest challenges many B2B brands are facing right now.

However, a DTC channel opens a wide range of opportunities, such as reaching new customers ready to buy from the brands directly, promoting brick-and-mortar stores or selling exclusive products partners don’t always have available warehouse or shelf space for.

As brick-and-mortar retailers temporarily or permanently close, consumers are going online to buy products they would normally purchase in store. Right now, manufacturers are in a unique position to help meet these consumer demands while making up lost sales due to shrinking retailer space.

Combined first-party data on shoppers behaviours with transactional data from retailers leads to a better understanding of your customers. And leveraging this data can help you  make strategic business decisions on everything from product development to packaging and pricing.

While the B2B ecommerce sector is growing, sellers have a relatively small market to choose their technology from.

B2B requirements are tough to meet and not every platform does it well enough.

B2B sellers can purchase large, expensive ecommerce platforms that require expensive customisations and a whole team to run the site. Others will turn to multiple vendors to get the job done.

Some B2B sellers are choosing third-party applications to work alongside their ecommerce platforms in order to manage order fulfilment, inventory synchronization, or financial transactions.

However, when going down this path, an integration provider is needed to tie those multiple systems together to efficiently manage your business.

Integration providers like nChannel focus on providing pre-built connectors to sync data and automate critical processes between ecommerce platforms and back-end systems like an ERP/Accounting, POS, or 3PL to increase operational efficiency and eliminate costly data processing errors.

Fifty-seven percent of B2B executives stated that ecommerce integration was another top technology need. They defined ecommerce integration as integrating backend technology for managing operations like inventory and customer orders with their ecommerce platform.

B2B site examples used earlier in this article have used integrator agencies like Americaneagle and Jasper to solve for complex ERP and back-office needs.

Folding Chairs and Tables sells — you guessed it — chairs and tables to B2B businesses. In the fall of 2016, when BigCommerce launched the ability for brands to push items over to Amazon, the team decided to give it a try.

The company bundled a popular set together and pushed just that one item over to Amazon. Within hours, they were selling by the hundreds, and within days, they had to pull the listing down and focus on restocking.

That’s multi-channel efficiency.

As more and more B2B companies cross the digital threshold, the need for fast and efficient fulfilment processes has become increasingly urgent. In a post-Amazon world, millennials are driving this demand with 73% of them involved in the B2B buying process today.

Customer expectations are growing, and this is another way B2Bs can appeal to the buyer. B2Bs can streamline fulfilment processes by using order management software. This type of software can help a B2B manage orders across different sales platforms, centralise information, and reduce supply chain complexity.

B2Bs can also turn to third-party fulfilment to get things moving. Third-party fulfillment, commonly referred to as 3PL, is using software like ShipStation or ShipBob to manage fulfillment. This is a great option if your business is scaling fast, your current fulfillment costs are on the rise, or you are spending too much time on inventory management.

Not every trend is worth jumping on, but which one deserves your time and effort? While some will provide a huge value-add, others might be out of touch with your particular audience or might be too costly to implement for your business to maintain a reasonable ROI.

Knowing what trends will be a good fit for you will often come down to knowing your own customers, vertical, and competitors backwards and forwards. There's several things you can do to evaluate industry trends and make the right move for your B2B.

Every industry changes at some point or another, and staying up to date via reports and data can show you where things are headed. The numbers in these reports often come from original research you can trust, instead of just following the popular word-on-the-street. Plus, when you're regularly aware of what's happening in your industry, you'll get a sense of which trends are worth the effort and which ones can wait.

Use customer data to evaluate if a trend is right for you. What do the numbers show? Many trends might work for other businesses, but you know your customers best. Consider utilising more than one data gathering tool, so you can see customer trends from different sources. Use these numbers to evaluate the overall trends in your business. Would adopting a new trend interrupt your customers’ behaviour?

Don't be afraid to ask current customers what they need. Getting feedback from current customers can give you insight into trends, and you can create more specific plans for the future. You never know, a customer might even suggest an idea you hadn't thought of yet.

Take a look at your competitors. Did they jump on a specific trend? If so, how did it work for them? Of course, you don't have to do everything your competition is doing, but being aware is another way to measure a trend.

Overall, global retail ecommerce sales are expected to reach $4.9 trillion in 2021, which is a 265% increase from 2014.

Payment options and site UX remain the two important factors for conversion on a B2B site, and reputation in the market remains important both in the awareness and the consideration phase.