Joe Cicman, senior analyst, Forrester Research

Buyers want helpful online product content and purchasing features, demands that have many of them preferring manufacturers’ websites, new research from Digital Commerce 360 and Forrester Research Inc. finds.

“Brand manufacturers win buyers with great content,” says Forrester senior analyst Joe Cicman. “Our joint research indicates the top choice for business buying in 2023 is the brand manufacturer’s own site (57%), beating-out Amazon Business at 43%. Why? Both a surprise and a delight: 85% of buyers tell us that the best source for product information is the brand manufacturer’s own site.”

The joint research project also found that 70% of B2B buyers will increase their online purchasing of goods and services in 2023.

Cicman — who will discuss at the EnvisionB2B Conference & Exhibition this month the results of the joint DC360/Forrester suryey and the intersection of online buyer demands and sellers’ ecommerce technology strategies — asserts that sellers must review the functions that address the challenges they face in serving customers, then identify the ecommerce technology platform that covers those w.

McKesson discusses B2B commerce trends

Val DuVernet, senior director of digital strategy and optimization, McKesson

Cicman will speak at EnvisionB2B in a June 21 session to analyze with DC360 the results of the joint research project and discuss digital commerce technology trends with Val DuVernet, senior director of digital strategy and optimization at medical products distributor McKesson.

B2B companies “should examine potential ecommerce solutions to identify which ones cover the specific common functions they most value,” Forrester says in the March 2023 report, “Demystifying the Technical Functions of B2B Commerce Solutions,” written by Cicman with input from other Forrester analysts.

Some of those functions, for example, can include how ecommerce technology manages customer account hierarchies, contract terms and personalized product catalogs for each customer.

Gartner’s Gene Alvarez on technology choices

Gene Alvarez, distinguished vice president and analyst covering digital commerce technology at research and advisory firm Gartner Inc., says B2B companies today have plenty options for deploying ecommerce technology based on their resources and their customers’ demands regarding the online buying experience.

Gene Alvarez, distinguished vice president and analyst, Gartner Inc.

Companies with limited IT resources can opt for software-as-a-service platforms that support customized customer-facing front ends. But businesses with more substantial resources can move up to even more customizable modular and composable MACH platforms with extensive use of microservices, APIs, cloud and headless infrastructure configurations, Alvarez says.

As competition increases in B2B ecommerce, and companies develop new and innovative ways to interact with buyers and make their customers’ jobs easier, it will be crucial for online sellers to operate commerce technology they can modify to keep up with new standards.

“As new innovation comes along, you need to” be able to bring about that new innovation because it will be table stakes within a year,” Alvarez says. “That’s where MACH brings advantages.”

Alvarez will speak on digital technology trends and strategies at EnvisionB2B. He will lead a June 20 panel and workshop on building customer loyalty.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.

The post B2B buyers prefer manufacturers’ ecommerce sites appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Connected commerce in B2B ecommerce is red hot and getting hotter. That’s because the technology and business strategy driving connected commerce is all focused on letting B2B buyers purchase what, when and how they want—and across multiple channels. But crucial to getting connected commerce right the first time and every time is having a technology strategy that gives buyers a truly helpful online purchasing experience. That is no small task.

Join us for an exclusive webinar chock-full of new research data and analysis that investigates the challenges and opportunities of building and expanding a successful connected commerce strategy.

Highlights include:

• Hear exclusive results analysis from a survey of more than 120 B2B organizations on their readiness plans for connected commerce.
• Gain perspective on the pivotal role e-procurement and punchout play in successfully implementing connected commerce.
• Learn how to overcome challenges for connected commerce and generate a true ROI.
• Learn best practices for doing connected commerce right each time, every time.

ALL attendees will receive the new report survey report and the 2023 U.S. B2B Ecommerce Market Report (a $399 value)*. Note, only consumer brands, manufacturers, distributors and retailers  are eligible for the complimentary report and subject to approval.

Sponsored by:

The post Get Connected Now – Any way you want it, just the way you need it appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

However, Costco net sales for the quarter increased to $52.60 billion. That’s up 1.9% from $51.61 billion in the prior year’s fiscal third quarter. And net sales for the first 36 weeks increased to $160.28 billion. That’s up 5.5% from $151.97 billion in the same period last year.

Chief financial officer Richard Galanti said big ticket discretionary departments decreased ecommerce sales 20%. Those included home furnishings, small electronics, jewelry and hardware, he said. Those accounted for 55% of Costco ecommerce sales.

“These same departments were down about 17% in warehouse, but they only make up 8% of in warehouse sales,” Galanti said.

Costco ranks No. 6 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers by web sales.

Costco ecommerce sales

Galanti said Costco hired a vice president of digital transformation in the past year to improve ecommerce, including both mobile sites and applications.

“That complemented three other outside VPs we hired, one of which was in the data analytics area,” Galanti said. “And we’ve really, over the last six to nine months, began a two-year roadmap to improve and re-platform our primary ecommerce website, and the same goes for our mobile apps and mobile site.”

Omnichannel fulfillment at Costco

“In terms of the benefit of buying online and picking up in store and things like that, we frankly view that as more costly than it is beneficial,” Galanti said. “In fairness to the different retailers that feel they have to do it, many of them want to do it. But there’s a cost of doing that.”

Costco can “certainly do more online,” Galanti said.

“We don’t have some strategic goal to go from 8% — which is still a $20 billion business — but to go from 8% of sales to 16%,” Galanti said. “But let’s go from 8% to 9%, 9% to 10%, 10% to 11% over a certain period of time. And we think that with some of the things we’re doing on that side, we can.”

One such thing Costco is working to implement, according to Galanti: showing in-stock warehouse inventory online.

Costco membership growth in fiscal Q3

Galanti said Costco increased new memberships 7% year over year.

“Membership growth continues,” Galanti said.

The wholesale retailer ended its fiscal third quarter with 69.1 million paid household members and 124.7 million cardholders, both up approximately 7% versus a year ago. Also at the end of the third quarter, Costco had 31.3 million paid executive members. That’s up 681,000 — or an average of 57,000 per week — during the 12-week fiscal third quarter.

“Executive members now represent a little over 45% of our paid members and approximately 73% of worldwide sales,” Galanti said.

Meanwhile, the retailer increased its number of warehouses “just under” 3%.

For the quarter, Costco reported $1.44 billion of membership fee income. That’s 1.98% of sales compared to $984 million, or 1.91% a year ago in the third quarter, Galanti said. That represents a $60 million (6.1%) increase in membership fees, he said.

In terms of membership renewals, the United States and Canada membership renewal rate was 92.6%. Globally, that rate is 90.5%.

Costco earnings

For the fiscal third quarter ended May 7, 2023, Costco reported:

• Net sales increased to $52.60 billion. That’s up 1.9% from $51.61 billion in the prior year’s fiscal third quarter.
• Costco ecommerce sales declined 10%.
• $1.44 billion in membership fee income, comprising 1.98% of sales compared to $984 million, or 1.91% a year ago in the third quarter.

For the 36-week period ended May 7, 2023, Costco reported:

• Net sales for the first 36 weeks increased to $160.28 billion. That’s up 5.5% from $151.97 billion in the same period last year.
• Costco ecommerce sales fell 7.8%.

Check back for more earnings reports.

Do you rank in our database?

Submit your data with this quick survey and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the ecommerce industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News.

The post Costco ecommerce sales drop; net sales still increase 1.9% appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The report, B2B Ecommerce Technology Trends + EnvisionB2B 2023 Preview, includes several reviews of B2B companies and a preview of the full EnvisionB2B agenda, which features more than 50 speakers and 25 sessions. EnvisionB2B is scheduled for June 20 – 22 at the Hilton Chicago.

Joe Cicman, senior analyst, Forrester Research Inc.

Joe Cicman, senior analyst for B2B digital commerce at Forrester Research, asserts that B2B sellers must review the functions that address the challenges they face in serving customers, then identify the ecommerce technology platform that covers those functions.

At EnvisionB2B 2023 next month, Cicman will refer to findings of a recent joint Forrester and Digital Commerce 360 B2B Digital Buyer study and discuss with Val DuVernet, senior director of digital strategy at pharmaceutical distributor McKesson Corp., the intersection of online B2B buyer demands and ecommerce technology strategies.

Among the survey’s findings: 70% of B2B buyers will increase their online purchasing of good and services this year, and buyers’ prefer purchasing on manufacturers’ ecommerce sites because of the quality of their product information. Those findings show that B2B sellers must find the right ecommerce technology to offer customers the best buying experience, Cicman says.

B2B companies “should examine potential ecommerce solutions to identify which ones cover the specific common functions they most value,” Forrester says in the March 2023 report, “Demystifying the Technical Functions of B2B Commerce Solutions,” written by Cicman with input from other Forrester analysts.

Some critical functions, for example, can include how ecommerce technology manages customer account hierarchies, contract terms and personalized product catalogs for each customer.

Gene Alvarez, distinguished vice president and analyst, Gartner Inc.

Gene Alvarez, distinguished vice president and analyst covering digital commerce technology at research and advisory firm Gartner Inc., says B2B companies today have plenty options for deploying ecommerce technology based on their resources and their customers’ demands regarding the online buying experience. Alvarez will lead an EnvisionB2B panel discussion and workshop on customer loyalty strategies.

He asserts that, as competition increases in B2B ecommerce and companies develop new and innovative ways to interact with buyers and make their customers’ jobs easier, it will be crucial for online sellers to operate commerce technology they can modify to keep up with new standards.

“As new innovation comes along, you need to” be able to bring about that new innovation because it will be table stakes within a year,” Alvarez says.

Manufacturers and distributors push ahead with ecommerce

Brent Steffen, director of ecommerce, Caterpillar Inc.

“Everything we are doing with digital is about creating integrated and seamless experiences for our customers that help them be more efficient,” says Brent Steffen,  Caterpillar Inc.’s director of ecommerce, who will give a June 21 keynote address about innovation in B2B ecommerce at EnvisionB2B 2023.

With corporate roots going back to 1873 and annual sales of more than $6 billion, Konica Minolta Inc. is well known as a global manufacturer and marketer of digital imaging products used in corporate and institutional facilities worldwide.

But the company is ready to reach and engage more customers more often, which is why it’s forging into B2B ecommerce.

Velinda Cox, vice president of ecommerce, Konica Minolta

“We are in a position of transition, change and transformation,” says Velinda Cox, senior vice president of ecommerce at Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. Inc., in Ramsey, New Jersey, where she is spearheading the global company’s ecommerce strategy. Cox will give a June 22 EnvisionB2B keynote address on developing a new strategy for digital ecommerce and a supportive technology ecosystem.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes B2B News content.

The post EnvisionB2B Preview: B2B companies share their ecommerce growth strategies appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Global Industrial is paying “approximately $69.2 million in cash” to acquire St. Louis-based Indoff, Global Industrial said. Indoff will continue to operate under its own brand and leadership team as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Port Washington, New York-based Global Industrial.

Complementing a multichannel B2B strategy

Barry Litwin, CEO, Global Industrial Co.

Barry Litwin, CEO of Global Industrial, said Indoff will complement his company’s multichannel sales strategy. Global Industrial relies on ecommerce to process more than half of its sales transactions, and Indoff brings a network of more than 360 sales partners that “extends our one-to-one sales reach to new customers and markets,” Litwin says.

Litwin adds that Indoff’s product lines and customer base — ranging from material handling systems to office furniture and lighting systems for such customers as financial giant Wells Fargo and manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Johnson Controls — will also strengthen Global Industrial’s market position and support the broader use of the company’s B2B ecommerce platform.

Jim Malkus, CEO, Indoff

Global Industrial already sells over 1 million SKUs of maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products. That includes its own private label products and equipment branded by Caterpillar that companies use to operate their facilities.

Jim Malkus, CEO of Indoff, says he expects Indoff to grow as a Global Industrial subsidiary

“As part of Global Industrial, we will be in a stronger position to drive the value we provide our customers and support the continued expansion of the business,” he says. Indoff caters to B2B and B2C industries including distribution, healthcare, finance, education, legal, engineering, manufacturing, hospitality, and government.

Global Industrial’s EnvisionB2B speakers

Klaus Werner, former chief marketing officer, Global Industrial Co.

Alex Tomey, chief merchandising officer, Global Industrial Co.

At the EnvisionB2B 2023 Conference & Exhibition in June in Chicago, Alex Tomey, Global Industrial’s chief merchandising officer, will speak on sustainability as a market differentiator. Klaus Werner, Global Industrial’s former chief marketing officer, will speak on customer loyalty strategies.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Global Industrial buys distributor Indoff for $69 million appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

For the first quarter ended March 31, MRC reported total sales of $885 million. That’s a 19.2% increase from $742 million in the first quarter of 2022. Net income was $28 million. That compares with $10 million in the first quarter of 2022.

60% all North American sales are now digital, MRC says. Based on that metric, Digital Commerce 360 projects ecommerce sales totaled about $531 million. The distributor did not break out a similar metric for the prior year.

Overall ecommerce accounted for 52% of sales in Q1 compared with 42% in the prior year. Based on these metrics, Digital Commerce 360 projects that Q1 ecommerce sales totaled $460.2 million, up 48% from $311.6 million in Q1 of 2022.

“Our strong first quarter performance, our solid and growing backlog and our strong alignment with our customers’ spending plans all provide us with increasing confidence in our 2023 outlook,” says CEO Rob Saltiel.

MRC Global earnings

For the fiscal first quarter ended March 31, 2023, MRC reported

• $885 million in total sales. That’s up 19.2% from $742 million in Q1 2022.
• $28 million in net income, compared with $10 million in the year-ago period.
• MRC digital sales account for 60% of all North American sales. Digital Commerce 360 estimates MRC ecommerce sales total $531 million.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post A pipes and valves distributor hits a digital milestone appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Alex Tomey, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer, Global Industrial Co.

Alex Tomey, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer for industrial and commercial products distributor Global Industrial Co., is applying his 20 years of merchandising expertise to help Global Industrial improve margin performance, accelerate new category expansion, and strengthen core and private brand product growth.

Prior to joining Global Industrial in 2021, Tomey applied his merchandising expertise at such companies as Petco, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Kohl’s, and Walmart.

DC360: What is driving B2B companies like Global Industrial Co. to expand online?

Tomey:  B2B customers expect a similar experience purchasing products online as they have in their personal life; everyone is challenged for time and the convenience of researching and buying products online greatly improves efficiencies. We continue to focus on improving the customer experience by elevating our content, functionality, and integration with our managed sales organization.

DC360: What are your biggest internal or and external barriers?

Tomey: The pandemic, the supply chain crisis and inflation has created a lot of disruption in the market place the last three years. It also inspired a lot of transformation and innovation. At Global Industrial, we re-branded our company, launched a new website, and re-vamped our ‘Go to Market’ strategy, focusing on elevating the customer experience.

DC360: What are the chief gains you’re realizing?

Tomey:  We have doubled down on our customer focus; fully integrating our product and marketing strategies, operational efficiencies, and customer service. We are confident this will position us to drive customer acquisition and growth over the long term.

DC360: What is the most valuable piece of advice you have on how to launch online B2B sales or increase them?

Tomey: Develop seamless customer touch points to drive efficiency and improve the overall experience.

Alex Tomey, senior vice president and chief merchandising officer of distributor Global Industrial Co., will speak during the session, “Make Sustainability A Differentiator for Your Company,” at the EnvisionB2B Conference & Exhibition in June in Chicago. 

Peter Lucas is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week, covering technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when new Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content is published.

The post EnvisionB2B: Global Industrial’s Alex Tomey on sustainability appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

IBT Industrial Solutions — an industrial products distributor for factories and warehouses in such industries as manufacturing, food processing, packaging, bottling, and power generation — realized the need to deliver more personalized online buying experiences to its customers after it launched a B2B ecommerce site two years ago.

Carin Sampson, vice president, human resources and marketing, IBT Industrial Solutions

IBT learned that its online customers fall into two distinct categories: legacy customers who transitioned to digital purchasing and digital-first customers who have long preferred the online channel and started doing business with IBT after its website launched. Each customer segment has its own needs when it comes to ecommerce and uses the company’s website differently when purchasing.

For example, legacy customers will search for products ranging from industrial motors and metalworking tools to safety equipment and janitorial supplies by part numbers. In contrast, digital-first customers will search by keywords.

Helping customers manage their overall buying process

At the same time, legacy customers tend to view IBT’s website as a self-service purchasing tool, but digital-first customers expect the site to help them better manage their overall buying processes. The latter often want to reorder products in one click and access and print past orders and invoices.

But IBT realized it developed its ecommerce site primarily to service the needs of its legacy customers, which led to lower conversions rates and sales among digital-first buyers.

“Our site was set up to support legacy customers, which is why we did not have as much success with digital-first customers,” says Carin Sampson, who leads IBT’s ecommerce strategy in her role as vice president of human resources and marketing. “We had a group of beta testers that we tailored the site to, but we didn’t turn the lessons learned from that group into something more scalable for a broader audience.”

IBT worked with digital agency Xngage to deploy and modify its new ecommerce site on software from Optimizely.

IBT generates about $200 million in sales annually through its ecommerce site. Since launching the site, it has started a personalization strategy that makes its site search more dynamic, leveraging buyers’ online purchasing behavior for product recommendations and personalized videos and marketing messages.

To improve its site search, IBT is looking at adding artificial intelligence capabilities that predict a customer’s keyword search term, then displays relevant results. This capability is expected to reduce friction during search and the purchasing experience.

Applying AI to personalized videos

On the product recommendations side, IBT plans to begin leveraging past customer purchasing data to recommend relevant products and brands. The company is also looking at applications that will allow it to track a newer buyer’s behavior on the site to make product recommendations, as opposed to relying on the buyer’s past online purchasing history, which may be thin or nonexistent.

The idea for adding personalized videos grew from research IBT conducted into how artificial intelligence can improve personalization.

“AI is something I follow, and there are lot of innovative ways it is being used — and personalized videos are one of them,” Sampson says. “There are companies that produce personalized videos using AI, and our aim is to explore this space and experiment with how we can use personalized videos to engage customers.”

Key to making its personalization strategy work will be integrating new personalization engines and tools to its ecommerce platform. As part of its personalization strategy, IBT is upgrading its enterprise resource planning system to help improve data flow between the ERP software and IBT’s ecommerce platform.

“Our legacy ERP predates APIs, and that’s where the complexity with integration comes in,” says Sampson, who adds the company’s ecommerce platform integrates easily with its product information management (PIM) system. “For us, it’s about the tech stack, not one app.”

Making the buyer’s job easier

Once IBT completely installs its new ERP system, Sampson says the company will be able to make relevant product recommendations for each customer, whatever their interests.

In addition, IBT is looking to add predictive analytics to forecast what products customers are likely to buy, helping IBT to achieve the right balance in its catalog. The company has more than 2 million SKUs in its ERP system.

“Right now, we can get data on what a customer buys and how often, but we can’t predict what they are likely to buy,” Sampson says. “That is a capability we want to pull into the personalization mix.”

Having predictive capabilities will also open the door for IBT to proactively reach out to customers. For example, the distributor plans to use customer purchasing histories to identify products that are regularly reordered and at what intervals, so it can send reminders to customers when the time to place a reorder is approaching.

“Customers care about convenience and proactive service, whether it be a reminder to reorder a product or predictive maintenance,” says Sampson. “Providing convenience makes the customer’s job easier.”

Steady increases in ecommerce sales

Overall, ecommerce sales for the company are showing steady growth. During the first few months of 2023, ecommerce sales grew about 20% compared with the same period a year earlier. This growth comes after ecommerce sales more than doubled in 2022 over 2021.

“The growth through our digital channel is outpacing growth in traditional sales channels,” Sampson says.

Another area where IBT is improving the buying experience is by reducing the number of products in its online catalog in favor of higher-quality products buyers want.

“Initially, we focused on quantity, but we have found we would have benefitted more with a ‘less is more’ approach first,” Sampson says. “Having built our site for existing customers, we now know we need to provide features that appeal to digital-first customers if we are to build strong relationships with them.”

Carin Sampson, vice president of human resources and marketing, IBT Industrial Solutions, will speak at the EnvisionB2B 2023 Conference & Exhibition on integrating ERP and ecommerce technology and building resilient supply chains.

Peter Lucas is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy.

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact editor Paul Demery at paul@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @pdemery.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post How an industrial products distributor appeals to digital-first customers appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

For the first three months of the year, sales totaled about $2.00 trillion. That’s just under a 5.1% increase  from $1.985 trillion in Q1 2022, based on data U.S. Department of Commerce data that Digital Commerce 360 compiled.

In comparison and with one exception, the sales of the biggest public distributors of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) and industrial supplies grew much faster. W.W. Grainger, Fastenal and MSC Industrial all increased total sales for the first quarter of the previous year. Only Global Industrial lost ground. For the three months ended March 31, Global Industrial posted sales of $273.8 million. That’s a 5.1% decrease from sales of $288.6 million in the first quarter of 2022.

Year-over-year distributor sales Q1

All the big public companies noticed some gathering weakness in some aspects of their business in the first quarter.

“Customer demand was generally in line with expectations for the quarter and continues to remain resilient as a whole despite certain areas of softness,” Grainger chief financial officer Dee Merriwether told analysts on the company’s Q1 earnings call.

Global Industrial says a weaker economy resulted in a year-over-year drop in revenue.

“The first-quarter performance reflects a continuation of the recent demand environment, with average daily sales declining 3.7%,” CEO Barry Litwin told analysts on the company’s first quarter earnings call. “Price was neutral in the period and volume remained muted, reflecting cautionary purchase behavior, specifically within our core, small and medium business customer base.”

But even with a tougher overall economic environment in the first quarter, all the biggest MRO distributors will continue to move out more aggressively on digital commerce.

For example, MSC Industrial Supply Co. late last year took broad steps to bolster its digital technology and operations. It hired its first chief digital officer and investing in ecommerce improvements. MSC — a prominent distributor of metalworking and maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products — is no stranger to strong digital sales, which have routinely accounted for well over half of total sales in recent years. Q1 ecommerce reached nearly 62% of total sales, and, under MSC’s new chief digital officer, John Hill, the company is laying the groundwork for continued growth in digital sales.

“John Hill and his team have completed a comprehensive review of our entire digital offering and have built a roadmap for our evolution in the space,” CEO Eric Gershwind said on a Q1 earnings call.

More Charts & Data Stories

Check back soon for more Charts & Data Stories, like our weekly B2B infographics. We add new content regularly. 

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Distributor sales in Q1 grow just under 1% year over year appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The old world of ecommerce technology is shifting away from legacy monolithic platforms limited in adaptability and scalability, and designed primarily for transaction processing.

Instead, ecommerce platform technology is entering into a new development and implementation area utilizing new applications such as headless commerce, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics. Called by various names such as connected commerce, composable commerce, and Ecommerce 3.0, today’s cutting-edge ecommerce platform technology supports more customizable ecommerce sites and an integrated B2B buying experience with transactions that can occur anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

BigCommerce releases an updated B2B Edition

Lance Owide, B2B general manager, BigCommerce

For ecommerce technology provider BigCommerce, its latest release of B2B Edition — a suite of B2B ecommerce applications for suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers — features a new array of tools and applications that include Multi-Storefront (MSF) compatibility, headless support and a brand new buyer portal.

“With B2B Edition, B2B brands can create buying experiences that help them sell more, convert at a higher rate, and influence repeat purchasing and loyalty,” says BigCommerce B2B general manager Lance Owide.

The updated B2B Edition, which BigCommerce announced this week, offers several updated tools, features and functions, including:

• Customized purchasing from a single back-end user experience based on a buyer’s specific region, industry vertical and purchasing needs.
• Purchases with preset price and shopping lists that buyers can configure price and quote (CPQ).
• Easier reordering such as by company or user and with the ability for users to view past company orders, quotes and lists in one place and upload orders in bulk with a quick order pad feature.
• Enhanced storefront integrations with any BigCommerce Stencil storefront, or any headless platform connected to BigCommerce such as CMS platforms.
• An enhanced mobile-friendly buyer portal.

Launching multiple online storefronts

With MSF, organizations can launch and manage multiple storefronts from a single BigCommerce back-end across brands, geographies, and/or customer segments, the company says. The updated buyer portal also automates many administrative tasks, such as managing orders, quotes, and workflows, BigCommerce says.

“B2B brands can create buying experiences that help them sell more, convert at a higher rate, and influence repeat purchasing and loyalty,” Owide says.

BigCommerce also released its first-quarter earnings. For the quarter ended March 31, revenue totaled $71.8 million, up 9% from $66.05 million in the year-earlier quarter. Net loss was $22.1 million, compared to $37.0 million in the first quarter of 2022.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post BigCommerce takes a fresh approach to B2B platform development appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.