B2B Ecommerce Accelerating, Study Finds

As ecommerce became a major consideration for sellers in the early to mid-aughts, B2B brands initially took a ‘wait and see’ approach, with many of the largest innovations and fastest growth arriving in the past few years. While there are distinct differences in the online functionality offered to a B2B buyer versus a B2C buyer, an Accenture Interactive study took a deeper look at the differences, and found that the differences are getting smaller.

The report, titled Channel Shift: Measuring B2B Efforts to Shift Customers Online, took a look at both the current B2B purchasing experience as well as the efforts by B2B sellers to bring more consumers online.

“As eCommerce and omnichannel purchasing experiences rise to dominance in B2C, they will become akin to consumer shopping. Since B2B buyers and procurement personnel are consumers in their personal lives, the expectation for informative, easy-to-navigate digital purchasing platforms applies just as much to buying a new fleet of corporate cars as it does to ordering a new pair of shoes.”

The State of B2B Ecommerce

Following a 2014 survey interviewing purchasers, Accenture took a look at the organizations selling B2B products and services online, interviewing 50 digital and eCommerce leaders from US-based B2B organizations with at least $500 million in annual revenue. Among the findings of the report:

• 86% of B2B organizations now offer online purchasing options
• B2B buyers who spent 90% or more of their budgets online in the last year doubled, from 9% to 18%
• Half of B2B organizations surveyed receive at least 10% of their revenue online (18.8% receive more than 50% of revenue online).

Resistance to Change

Even as some buyers opt for online purchasing, sellers are still facing an uphill battle in convincing customers to buy online or increase customer spending, with notable resistance for the following reasons:

• Long term customers reluctant to change – 64%
• Customers don’t consistently use online buying options – 54%
• Sales organizations are resistant to driving customers online; Organizations are unprepared to support online sales – 42%

How Sellers Intend to Overcome Resistance from Customers and Salespeople

The two entities most resistant to change—current customers and salespeople—are also the two that would be most affected by an ecommerce push.

Overcoming Customer Reluctance

Even with limited budgets, B2B organizations experiment with a combination of tactics, both analog and digital, in order to spur existing and new customers to transact online. Currently, the top methods organizations are employing to overcome customer reluctance are as follows:

• Email marketing (92%)
• Mailers that refer to websites with more information about a specific product or promotion (86%)
• Online sales support via the phone (84%)
• Updated eCommerce websites (66%)
• Dedicated team to promote/train online experience (61%)

Among the other tactics currently used: Online only discounts/rebates, Online-only services, Online chat sales support, and Online only loyalty programs.

Overcoming Salesperson and Executive Reluctance

“The findings show that one major resistance factor to eCommerce sales comes from within the organization itself. For a B2B organization to get their customers to start buying online, business leaders must first drive employee evangelism by pushing their own sales teams to implement change instead of staying set in their original ways of doing business, mainly offline.” –Bob Barr, Managing Director at Accenture Interactive

Essentially, salespeople are worried about losing credit for the sale and display high levels of reluctance in promoting an online buying experience.

To address this, 81% of leading firms—those receiving more than 21% revenue from online—have currently implemented a program allowing credit for salespeople who convince customers to go online, up from 67% of average firms.

Moving forward, organizations looking to increase B2B ecommerce revenue look to implement internal sales contests rewarding sales representatives for a percentage of their sales that go online.

Looking Forward: The Move to Mobile

Just as B2B organizations find their way into the ecommerce game, a new trend—mobile—will come into play. Though a notable portion of firms have (or plan to execute) mobile strategies to support customers’ online shift, the motivations and tactics in play vary across organizations. Fifty percent of interview participants have already implemented mobile strategies; 36 percent have mobile plans in the works and only 14 percent don’t intend to focus on mobile.

For the entire report, including an audio explanation of the results of the study, see the page, Channel Shift: Measuring B2B Efforts to Shift Customers Online, download the report, and see the infographic.

Related B2B Ecommerce Resources from WEX

• You Have the Technology, Rid Your Organization of Paper Checks
• Payments Innovations Set to Disrupt the Banking Industry
• Faster, Frictionless Financial Processes: WEX and Basware
• Five Strategies to Uncover Value in Procure-to-Pay through E-Payments
• Supplier Relationships Believed Central to B2B Customer Engagement
• The 3 Components of a Successful Tech-Fueled Procurement Transformation

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