With the increase in demand for e-commerce solutions for products, statistics show that the B2B ecommerce trends will change by 2028, increasing the market to USD 25.65. And even though this number is still an approximation, there won’t be any business that would wish to lose on growth stairs and reach success. After the pandemic, all of us have observed how online commerce and digital practices have shot up, making businesses rethink their priorities and adopt new ways of the digital medium at a faster rate.
In an environment where every company has similar marketing and sales channels, Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Platform helps companies with tailored approaches according to their needs and business priorities. With a robust data model and various innovative products to work for results, Salesforce B2B Commerce Solutions is a great solution. But before we dive into that, we need to understand the foreseen B2B ecommerce trends in 2022 to streamline our needs and align them with solutions better!
B2B Ecommerce Trends In 2022
1. Internet is the new local market
With the growing interactions over the internet and the emergence of products like Metaverse, people are getting more attracted to the idea of online exploration rather than in-person and this is even impacting their purchase behaviors.. 75% of B2B buyers are sticking to the digital interactions even after the pandemic’s intensity, and restrictions decrease, which shows that digitization within B2Bs will be the B2B ecommerce trend of 2022.
2. Marketplaces are the new craze!
Experts predict that due to the current sway in demand, Marketplaces as digital platforms will be the biggest hype as they will be connecting buyers and sellers ranging from small to large businesses and enterprises. The marketplace scenario will let B2Bs get over additional sellers under their shade and thus allow them to provide third-party products giving B2B buyers a plethora of options to look from.
3. Self Service Portals
Customers get attracted to businesses who understand their issues and do not provide them general options for their demands but rather serve them personalized ways to function with the business, and that’s the reason; even after being in demand, self-service portals will be one of the B2B ecommerce trends in 2022. The experience expected by customers is more like researching through products, comparing with given options, and ordering/reordering along with shipment tracking, just the way we have in e-commerce giants. So self-service is going to remain in demand.
4. Focusing more on acquiring customers
Along with self-service portals for customers, the other factor B2B brands are focused on now is acquiring new customers for their brands. Since most B2B brands have started their digital journeys, they are eager to utilize the power of digital marketing. B2B brands are working on bringing up data-driven marketing strategies, social media campaigns, etc., in the place of the existing cold calling and mass emails to pull out more new customers and maintain loyalty regarding their existing customers.
Read Also: How Can Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud Help Businesses To Increase Sales?
5. Automation is the new step to climb
Customer retention is something all B2B commerce brands focus on, but they even keep changing their platforms to align with the ongoing trends to stay in the market, and this shift acts as a hurdle for the customers to complete their purchases. Brands have been focusing on automating their processes, but they were majorly the simpler orders since the orders are getting more complex; there’s a demand for automation of those as well by the B2B buyers so that we can see more automation in the coming time.
6. Flexibility is the key
B2B buyers need choices and flexibility as they demand more control in their purchase transaction flow. In simpler words, we can say that buyers wish to configure the purchase of complicated products online. Medical device manufacturers are allowing their customers to purchase consumables as per their specifications and spare supplies, which has resulted in a good spike in sales. So considering current demands and situations brands have to think about more features than easier re-orders to be in the eyes of customers.
7. B2B is getting mixed into D2C initiatives
As a result of the pandemic, many B2B investments found functioning with the principles of D2C initiatives better as they were capable to reach directly to customers even in such strained situations with no extra expenses. Due to the pandemic, many B2B businesses felt it was easier to directly supply to the consumers, making the difference between B2B and D2C quite blurry. And due to this, companies are expected to support channel shifts, and businesses working both as B2B and D2C are aimed at a B2B e-commerce trend in 2022.
Read Also: Salesforce B2B Commerce Vs B2C Commerce: Understanding The Differences
8. Integration is a new challenge as well as the trend
Since businesses are expected to move to more digitalized paths due to the current demand, it is expected that they will want to integrate their existing legacy establishments with current digitalized platforms, thus enhancing the demand for integration measures and making it a challenge at the same time.
9. Content is the key
Since B2B e-commerce is walking on the path of digitalization, good quality content is something that cannot be avoided. Content is an enhancer of digitization efforts, from cold-calling to social media campaigns and emails; hence, various forms of content will be the hype for the e-commerce field.
10. Security was and always will be important
B2B organizations deal with a lot of data, be it customers or their inventories. This humongous amount of data means high chances of security breaches, and that’s why a flowing trend in B2B ecommerce will be cybersecurity and data security. Businesses will be working on and investing in security technologies and resources to avoid such threats and breaches.
Final Thoughts
In the concluding words, we can say that Salesforce B2B e-commerce platforms and their digitalization are the new hype that will be evident in the market and a top investment for all buyers, sellers, and enthusiasts. You can develop and leverage a Salesforce B2B ecommerce storefront with these new B2B ecommerce trends. We aim to see many new and flowing trends in the B2B e-commerce trends in 2022, and rapidly changing customer demand and preferences and emerging technologies will emerge many new trends to be added to the list.
Originally published at https://cyntexa.com on May 15, 2022.
