Why eCommerce and Why Now?
If you’ve ever purchased so much as a mug online, you understand eCommerce. Understanding how to make it work for your manufacturing or distribution operation is an entirely different story.
It’s where commerce—and your competition—is headed.
The world is shifting from catalogs and phone, fax, email orders to an era of convenience for the customer, and while eCommerce was once a fringe B2B sales channel for manufacturers and distributors, the convenience it allows is elevating it into the buying method of choice for B2B customers.
- Your buyers expect seamless, high-quality online purchasing experiences, and they’re beginning to look for a similarly simple, elegant experience when they make B2B buying decisions.
- This shift in consumer expectations is driving B2B companies online, and a majority of them (57%) believe the shift in commerce from offline to online will be rapid
- This means that more than half of your competition could be gaining an advantage over you in the marketplace. With experts saying U.S. B2B eCommerce will reach $1.13 trillion by 2020
- You can’t afford to do things the old way or do things half way.
The use of eCommerce is growing at a rate of 19% per year. It currently drives 41% of B2B revenue. 53% of customers will be purchasing online by 2017. It was a top-priority investment for wholesale distribution executives in 2016. – Source: Forrester Research, 2016
It’s good for business – eCommerce is not an option – it’s essential
Customer orders might not require a lot of hand-holding in your current distribution setup, but it requires far less to have customers take care of themselves. Simply put—you still need to offer great customer service, but eCommerce means more customers are serving themselves. In a consumer-focused, dynamic online environment, your customers can find what they need, discover what they want, and efficiently make purchases—without taking a moment of your time. When you’re saving time, you’re saving money. It’s the perfect scenario:
- It’s easier for your customers to buy from you
- It takes fewer resources to sell more product
- Your sales reps will have more time to focus on higher-margin key accounts
Cost-effective, self-serve, online-only environments are the perfect shopping option for the manufacturing and distribution industry, and your customers are making the switch.
Why haven’t you made the switch?
Change on this scale is difficult for every company—even when it makes your job easier and increases your revenue—but that doesn’t mean you have to go through it alone. You aren’t alone, and while it is a big change, it’s not too late to put an eCommerce strategy together that can outsell the competition.
NetSymm is here to help. Contact us today at [email protected] for a demo of our new mobile app.
