LNME
ECOMMERCE
Niranjan Gidwani, Consultant Director of Texub
THE REALITY IS AROUND THE CORNER Niranjan Gidwani, Consultant Director of Texub, talks about the burgeoning B2B e-commerce industry
T
he evolution of B2B e-commerce from a niche segment of the commercial market to where it will soon equal or surpass traditional channels has been underway for some time. Going back in time, B2B purchasing was, and has even till recently, been dominating - by a generation that has believed in and favoured centralized, face-to-face interactions and personal relationships. Whether we like it or not, B2B purchasing is now the responsibility of the much more internet-savvy Generation X, and this activity will soon be under the management of the first alldigital generation, for whom devices are an extended appendage of their bodies. Globally, the world chooses to call them Millennials. 24 | LOGISTICS NEWS ME | NOVEMBER 2022
Unlike the previous generations, millennials are at ease with online buying. It must be understood that they have no problem extending their B2C shopping practices to their B2B purchases. And they will. Giant online retailers like Amazon have been the pioneers in creating frictionless experiences that consumers have been used to. Such incidents are now commonplace across almost all B2C categories, and no good online platform can survive for long without super seamless experiences. The same buyers are now getting into positions responsible for work and business-related purchases. B2B vendors are rushing to adopt the same principles and methods to their online buying experiences. The B2B e-commerce model will likely be a
hybrid model, where buyers want to shift between online and offline transactions and interactions for purchases and services. As this gains traction, the importance of putting together the data and creating seamless experiences will only increase. By 2023, Gartner forecasts 15% of mid-to-large B2B brands to launch their marketplaces and 70% of all marketplaces to support B2B transactions. The transition to digital is not without risk, and the high-profile cyberattacks and increased fraud will cause their share of problems. In the case of B2B, transactions are likely to be of higher value and, therefore, more concerning. For B2C and B2B businesses, securing customer data and protecting company infrastructure from fraud and security breaches are as crucial as any other aspect of e-commerce. Adopting and investing in a mobile strategy, especially as more Millennials and younger digital generations take leadership roles, will be essential for any B2B business looking to sustain and grow its e-commerce revenue into the future. As per Gartner and other analysts, the only way forward for B2B is a greater reliance on e-commerce and the continued development and advancement of the trends and technology we are used to seeing. B2B sales organizations are not selling the way today’s buying customers want to buy. This is slowly but surely creating a growing buyer-seller divide. This current phase is pivotal for traditional B2B sales leaders and organizations. It’s time to acknowledge that the world has changed and that we can’t sell how we used to. It is imperative to learn from the habits of highly successful B2C organizations like Amazon to truly understand the customer and use data and deeper insights to be more effective. Since online B2B is likely to be bigger than online B2C in a few years, this provides organizations with a fresh opportunity to co-exist alongside the Amazon of the world. Interesting times ahead. We may hear of some upcoming start-ups from this region creating new success stories of the future. WWW.CBNME.COM
