6 Trends That Will Drive Tomorrow’s B2B eCommerce Environment

In recent years, B2B ecommerce innovations have resulted in previously unimagined levels of efficiency, tremendously bringing down the cost of doing business online and opening up business customers to a whole universe of products, services, and experiences.

Here are just a few of the trends that may soon take B2B ecommerce even further.

1.) Smarter Payment Processing

Issues like standards compliance, cybercrime, and transaction cost management continue to be an issue in ecommerce. Left unaddressed, these issues can make it difficult for smaller businesses to sustainably run ecommerce operations. The emergence of modern but accessible next-gen payment processing solutions may finally give these organizations the capabilities they need to bring down the risks and costs associated with online transactions. 

Unlike earlier generations of payment processing software, these new solutions employ cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities that permit each transaction to take the least risky and most cost-effective processes at a given time. This dynamic capability allows businesses a lower baseline cost for facilitating transactions, giving them more room to grow or absorb different risks.

2.) Real-Time Product Information Management (PIM)

Reconciling product data between different online platforms remains an ecommerce bottleneck for many businesses. Even as more organizations have access to better process automation options, product information management across a variety of platforms and online marketplaces still requires significant amounts of human input. However, the introduction and wider availability of novel PIM software promises to finally bring smart automation to this area of ecommerce.

These solutions, when implemented properly, can eliminate data inaccuracies, facilitate time-to-market, help consolidate product management teams, and enhance customer service, ultimately improving an organization’s backroom efficiency and competitiveness.

3.) A Continued Move Away from Legacy Systems

The reasons for the persistence of legacy systems can be complex, with many often justifiable from the perspective of a business. All in all, most of the reasons for staying with a legacy system have to do with the cost of implementation. For instance, in markets where labor costs are lower, manual data management is often a more attractive option, even given the inherent flaws of these systems. The same can be said of businesses that could not afford the onsite hardware and specialized labor needed to run older systems.

Thankfully, the cost of updating to better current-generation systems continues to drop almost year over year. A lot of this has to do with remotely hosted cloud computing solutions now being a proven way to implement newer technologies. Additionally, vendors are now offering highly competitive packages and options for virtually all industries.

While the world of business will continue to see some legacy backend systems in use for some time, the demise of these systems is likely to accelerate over the current decade.

4.) Personalization in a B2B Context

Personalization is more often considered to be more relevant for B2C ecommerce markets. However, it is relevant for B2B as well, as it is ultimately individual human beings that interact with various ecommerce platforms and tools. This means that the need for better personalization and usability is not restricted solely to retail buyers.

The data seems to confirm this. A recent Accenture survey found that about 50% of B2B buyers have identified customization as an important feature when selecting relationships with suppliers. What’s more, the same survey found that B2B buyers spent about 48% more when they have a personalized ecommerce experience.

To further improve personalization, some B2B vendors are now trying out platforms where the buyers can do much of the personalization themselves without the need for human assistance except for more complex customizations.

Given the potential of this trend for increasing sales, we’re likely to see this being explored more in the future.

5.) Better Product Discovery Processes

One of the main challenges of B2B ecommerce is the difficulty of finding quality products at an optimal price. Much of the information out there can be inaccurate or out-of-date, and finding the right vendors and suppliers can be demanding.

This could be solved at the seller’s end through the use of better PIM software. As discussed above, these solutions can help remove product information inconsistencies even across multiple platforms. An alternative to PIM software could be through using enterprise resource planning solutions or similar tech.

6.) Heavier B2B Social Media Marketing

Though social media is often considered to be a B2C tool, an increasing number of B2B businesses are now heavily investing in social media marketing campaigns. This is because the individuals who make decisions for businesses are almost universally on social media platforms themselves.

Major social media providers such as Meta and LinkedIn have long recognized this, so social media pages from these platforms now have features that are intended to be useful in a B2B context. These features and their associated capabilities will likely expand further to meet the needs of different ecommerce markets.

Final Words

While the B2B and B2C markets remain separate spaces, it’s clear that they are not as different as previously imagined. The need for more personalization and an omnichannel experience seems to show that business decision-makers are driven by many of the same things as regular consumers, demonstrating that B2B ecommerce marketing specialists may need to apply an empathetic customer-journey framework not dissimilar from those currently employed in B2C.

In other ways, the B2B sphere has remained the same as ever with its ever-increasing demands for better efficiency. This has meant that even back-end solutions that were impressive just a few years ago may not be enough to be competitive today. By understanding the root causes of these B2B trends, decision-makers may be able to take the lead, not just in capturing today’s markets but tomorrow’s opportunities as well.