9 B2B E-Commerce Trends for 2022 - Part 1

With 2022 Q2 fast upon us, B2B e-commerce trends are a hot topic. What does the future look like for businesses relying on e-commerce or investigating a move to that marketplace?

It’s no news to anyone that COVID-19 adjustments have been the driving force behind innovative business approaches. And as much as we’re all ready to move on, the fallout is still with us. Businesses with a strong e-commerce presence have weathered the pandemic storm better than some of their competitors. Others have taken warnings to heart and are now considering adding e-commerce to their arsenal.

Knowing which e-commerce trends to pay attention to can help your organization make wise business decisions. In this series of posts, we will discuss nine top emerging trends in B2B e-commerce. These include trends in technology, consumer behavior, and business developments. It’s a meaty topic, so we’ll split it into three posts. Part one will cover:

Trend #1. Business buyers as consumers

A leading trend affecting B2B businesses is the way buyers are buying. B2B buyers look a lot more like B2C buyers. That’s not surprising because business buyers are consumers in their secular life. Online stores woo customers with easier and more seamless buying experiences and professional buyers are looking for the same level of ease.

Also, studies indicate that in just three years, 75% of the global workforce will be made up of millennials. Having digitally native millennials as professional buyers will alter the trajectory of the buying experience. They have the knowledge, technology, and choices to get what they want.  Younger generations influencing B2B markets with their buying preferences will be a significant factor in other top e-commerce trends.

Trend #2. Customer experience analytics

A compelling component of B2B strategy will come from B2C customer experience analytics. Customer journey analytics involves analyzing buyer behavior across multiple touchpoints and measuring its impact on your business. Here are some benefits of adopting customer journey analytics software into your business model.

Improved data & analytics

Collecting and evaluating online data is made possible with modern B2B e-commerce software. Add customer journey analytics and you have the insight to improve the operation of your web store. Most important though will be your ability to provide an experience that earns customer loyalty. Capturing more useful data through e-commerce analytics can:

• Improve your customers’ overall buying experience
• Facilitate your supply chain management
• Enable your marketing team to generate personalized content and marketing
• Illuminate common checkout issues
• Reduce the occurrence of abandoned carts and transactions and increase sales
• Identify your most valuable marketing channels
• Drive effective budgeting decisions

Sana Commerce Insights (SCI) is a tool that enables a holistic overview of all your commercial data. SCI is unique in being the only analytics tool to combine your ERP, web store, and analytics data.

Customer data platforms

Customer data platforms (CDPs) gather and integrate all customer data into a single platform. CDP tools provide the data for your team’s successful marketing campaigns.

CDPs collect data from multiple tools to create a complete profile of your customers and their interaction with your content. For example, your CDP can collect data from touchpoints like Facebook, LinkedIn, your website, email, any place your customers interact with your brand. Then the CDP consolidates the captured data in a unified customer profile. This data will inform your marketing team and identify what you need to do to retain customers. A CDP can also be used by your customer service team to tailor support to each customer.

37% of B2B companies already use advanced campaign measurement and analytics tools. Shouldn’t yours be one of them?

Trend #3. Personalized B2B pricing

The 2021 trend of automated payments will continue in 2022.  Automated payments are beneficial and more convenient for both buyers and sellers. Software solutions that facilitate these automated payments are rapidly becoming the first choice.

Having a great selection of payment options is vital to B2B e-commerce. The most important options to offer include:

• Credit cards
• Checks
• Purchase orders
• Mobile wallets

Mobile wallets such as Amazon Pay and Apple Pay are increasingly popular. And we’re also noticing B2B e-commerce channels experimenting with omnichannel sales approaches.

Innovative payment options

Personalization is the key to successful B2B e-commerce strategy. It’s a powerful tool even in smaller customized catalogs for quick reordering based on past orders. Personalized marketing keeps the buying experience fast and efficient. When customers can find exactly what they want, quickly add it to their cart, and pay for it, it will influence how and where they shop.

An effective payment system should allow your customers to pay any way they want. When looking for faster online order-to-cash processes, be sure to consider whether your preferred payment provider offers full-service payment processing solutions.

There you have the first three of the nine top B2B e-commerce trends for 2022. Stay tuned for part 2 of this series where we’ll discuss three more:

• Contextualized real-time pricing
• Faster and easier order fulfillment
• Prolonged resource shortages

Meanwhile, Learn more about the evolution of B2B e-commerce trends — from 2017 to 2022 — with our e-commerce trends timeline.

Regardless of who you sell to, Sana Commerce Cloud suits a wide variety of industries, use cases, and business sizes. Capitalize on an out-of-the-box solution, state-of-the-art content management system, and unrivaled performance — all powered by 100% real-time ERP integration. If you’d like to know more about Sana Commerce’s e-commerce solutions, contact our experts for a free demo.

By Sana Commerce, www.sana-commerce.com

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