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B2B sellers make customer expansion and converting sales online priorities

The survey shows most B2B sellers believe they have mastered the basics of ecommerce, such as site search and product reviews. But when it comes to personalized commerce, larger companies are more satisfied with their efforts, while many smaller competitors are investing in this area. Two-thirds of B2B sellers say they are successfully driving online conversions with such widely deployed features as:

• Site search
• Promotions
• Product ratings and reviews
• Showing inventory availability

While companies of all sizes generally believe that personalization is working for them, those with more than $500 million in annual revenue report greater success in several areas. Overall, B2B sellers are seeing the greatest return from tailoring site search results, for example by showing buyers only products they are approved to buy and the prices their companies have negotiated.

But several tactics are working far better for larger versus smaller firms, probably reflecting greater investment. These include personalized site search results, customer-specific pricing and targeting promotions to specific customer segments. Smaller companies are responding by putting some personalization features on their to-do lists for 2023. That includes personalized payment and shipping options (15.8% of smaller firms plan to invest versus 3.6% of larger ones) and personalized product category pages (15.8% versus 1.2%).

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Three of the top four online retail websites for apparel shopping are mass merchants. Amazon, Walmart and Target draw a large portion of online apparel sales. More specifically, four in 10 apparel buyers purchase 26% or more of their purchases on Amazon.

Mass merchants draw beauty sales

Overall, mass merchants dominate online beauty purchasing. Amazon, specifically, drew 59% of beauty-product purchases between October 2022 and March 2023, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey. 52% of respondents shopped with other mass merchants in the same time frame. Meanwhile, no other kinds of retailers had a 50% penetration of sales. The next largest penetration of beauty-product sales was with drug stores, at 36%. And 29% of respondents shopped with specialty beauty retailers, in particular, for such products.

Just over a third of surveyed online beauty shoppers go directly to brands for their loyalty program perks and money savings. 26% said they go directly to a brand because brands are more likely to offer free shipping, and 23% cite trust as a key factor.

Same-day delivery and flexible returns with mass merchants

38% of surveyed online shoppers ordered online from a web-only retailer for same-day delivery in the six-month period from September 2022 through February 2023. Meanwhile, 31% ordered online from a physical store for same-day delivery.

On the flip side, 24% returned an Amazon order to another retailer (such as Kohl’s) for processing back to Amazon. That compares with 19% who returned an Amazon order to an Amazon return center.

And when it came to in-store and curbside pickup, more than half of shoppers went to Walmart (63%) or Target (52%). Meanwhile, 37% of surveyed online shoppers used such services for hardware/home improvement purchases, and 34% for consumer electronics.

Amazon buying frequency

The online buying frequency among Amazon shoppers is fundamental to their success.

27% of survey respondents in September 2022 said they purchased from Amazon a few times a month. 18% said they purchase from Amazon a few times a week. Meanwhile, 3% said they purchase from it daily, and 6% said they do so multiple times a day.

Almost half of online shoppers surveyed purchased more apparel, home goods and health/beauty products on Amazon than elsewhere in 2022.

And when shoppers aren’t purchasing on Amazon, they tend to shop online at Walmart (54%), Target (36%) and specialty retailers (36%). Department stores and other marketplaces take the next largest shares of sales.

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Experts project business buyers will increase their online purchasing. Research and advisory firm Astute Analytica forecast a 14.1% compound annual growth rate in global B2B ecommerce from 2022 to 2027, reaching $18.8 billion. In the U.S., B2B ecommerce will grow by 10.7% annually during that period and will account for 24% of all B2B sales by 2027, up from 16% in 2021, Forrester Research says.

Given that projected growth, it’s no surprise that B2B companies would put ecommerce platform and applications at the top of their tech shopping list for 2023. That’s closely followed by digital marketing applications and customer and site analytics solutions.

Larger firms are more focused than smaller ones on payment and security investments (28.9% to 15.8%). That may reflect the greater likelihood that larger firms are launching ecommerce sites in new countries where they may need to offer popular local payment options and address new security issues. Smaller companies are prioritizing order management (32.9% to 18.1%) and technology for building their own marketplaces (18.4% to 3.6%.)

It’s a sign of the growing appeal of B2B marketplaces that several vendors have emerged offering software that enables even midsized and smaller companies to invite outside firms to sell on their ecommerce sites. It’s noteworthy that only 13% of respondents are investing in what’s known as “headless commerce,” which separates what website visitors see on a website from the back-end ecommerce systems.

That’s touted to provide additional flexibility in website design. But it adds complexity to site design and management as it requires continual data exchanges between the front-end presentation layer and back-end systems.

The headless approach may be best suited for organizations with the IT resources to ensure the smooth flow of data between systems. In our survey, 14.8% of larger companies cited headless as a priority. versus 11.8% of smaller ones.

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But a new survey shows that many small businesses face obstacles on the path to achieving sustainability. Meanwhile, another research report shows that left unchanged, the ongoing environmental impact from last-mile ecommerce deliveries will be harmful.

Sustainable ecommerce fulfillment comes at a cost many won’t pay

Delivery and logistics services provider DHL conducted a survey of 2,500 small and medium-sized businesses. It finds that 95% of companies say sustainability is important to their business. And almost half (48%) believe it’s extremely important. But when asked about the biggest challenge to achieving sustainable goals, 42% said the overall investment is the main obstacle. 11% said they had no clue where to start.

Sustainability is important to almost every respondent, DHL says. But “nearly half (47%) are willing to invest only 1%-3% of their operating budget into sustainability practices,” according to the DHL survey. “And 26% are not willing to invest anything” into sustainable ecommerce fulfillment.

If left unchanged, the environmental impact of the rising number of ecommerce deliveries globally will also cause more air pollution and human health issues.

A new report by Clean Mobility Collective and Stand.earth Research Group claims ecommerce and the associated emissions from last-mile delivery will continue growing exponentially. The report predicts global annual parcel volume could increase from over 315 billion parcels in 2022 to up to 800 billion parcels a year in 2030.

Without any greener changes to how these parcels are packaged and delivered, global ecommerce deliveries will emit up to 160 megatons of carbon dioxide per year by 2030, according to the report. That’s equivalent to yearly CO2 emissions of up to 44 coal plants.

“Approximately 1 billion trees would need to be planted and allowed to grow for 10 years to sequester the emissions of a single year of current last-mile parcel deliveries,” the report says.

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Most manufacturers (53%) have achieved “full adoption” of cloud-based data platforms, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and connected services. Meanwhile, just over a third (35%) have fully adopted scanning and intelligent data capture (OCR), says PwC in a new survey from 300 supply chain executives.

Manufacturers still on their way to more digital supply chain processes

But adoption of digital technologies that help drive predictive insights or cross-enterprise efficiency are in the early stages. Just one in four (24%) manufacturers have applied artificial intelligence to their supply chains, according to our survey. Even fewer have adopted blockchain (18%), robotics/robotic process automation (RPA) (16%) and augmented reality (14%).

“Given the relatively lean adoption rates of these technologies, manufacturers expect to make investments to increase them,” PwC says. “Nearly three-quarters (73%) report that they plan to make investments in AI/ML, robotics/RPA and blockchain over the next two years.”

But as the economy continues to soften and cut back on their spending, some manufacturing companies may slow how much they will spend on digital supply chain applications. For example, nearly half (47%) cite budget constraints as the top challenge of digitizing their supply chains, followed by insufficient capabilities of supply chain hardware and software systems (31%) and a misalignment of supply chain goals and the business’ overall strategic goals (31%).

“Despite some success in adopting digital technologies — and plans to invest in areas that are lagging — many manufacturers are encountering systemic obstacles and other challenges in getting the most out of digitizing the supply chain,” PwC days. For example, few tools yield “out of the box” benefits, requiring more time and digital know-how to make an impact.”

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