Forrester Research analyst Andy Hoar offered up a terrific summary of a new B2B report at the recent Game Plan B2B E-commerce Forum held in Chicago, and the big take-away for us was that customers want to go mobile.
The report, “Online And Mobile Are Transforming B2B Commerce,” was commissioned by hybris software and shared for the first time Oct. 9. It is chock-full of data that makes the strongest possible case for B2B e-commerce.
However, there are three key findings:
- Selling online and on mobile devices is a significant new opportunity for B2B.
- Customers are demanding self-service tools and those tools are changing the way B2B consumers interact with brands.
- The biggest risk in B2B e-commerce is waiting too long to implement online sales and tools.
When it comes to mobile, the report reveals that there is a truly radical transformation taking place: 52 percent of B2B customers are using smartphones to buy products and services, and a whopping 62 percent are using tablets to do their research before buying. Tablets also have a significant share when it comes to mobile purchases, with 52 percent using them to buy.
If you need to convince your C-suite of the value of e-commerce, those stats are a good place to start.
The idea that B2B customers are still hanging on to old purchasing habits has been completely dispelled by the report. Forrester’s research indicates that if you build it, they will come—the more that B2B companies engage in e-commerce, the more their customers will shop in these so-called “non-traditional” channels.
Hoar’s presentation of the report at Game Plan was the perfect way to wrap up the event, the first of it’s kind to focus solely on the B2B market. Over and over we heard attendees share their successes in implementing these strategies, and we also heard a collective sigh of relief that brands struggling to get up to speed are not alone in their pain points.
However, Hoar’s message reverberates: Now is the time. Companies that don’t embrace the modern B2B consumer will lose, and those that learn how to adapt and create world-class customer experiences online will absolutely come out on top.
