DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK
FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
How dealers, distributors and wholesalers excel at selling online
B2BECNEWS
Compliments of:
2 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
DISTRIBUTORS AND
WHOLESALERS GROW
WITH E-COMMERCE
complete the purchase through the distributor’s
online shopping cart.
Atlanta Light Bulbs is an example of how
distributors and wholesalers are seizing the
opportunity to build and refine their B2B
e-commerce strategy. Some 62% of distributors
and wholesalers recently surveyed by
B2BecNews have an e-commerce site today.
Results of the February survey of 122 distributors
and wholesalers also show that of those that
don’t have an e-commerce site, 35% expect to
launch one in six months or less, 26% plan to go
live within one year and 19% expect to launch
one within two years, the survey found.
Growing sales is the top reason why distributors
and wholesalers begin to sell online, cited by
71% of the executives surveyed. But many
distributors and wholesalers also are entering
e-commerce as a way to reach new customers—
that was named as a motivator by 57% of the
companies surveyed by B2BecNews.
Keeping up with current and future competitors
and meeting customer expectations should be
key factors driving distributors and wholesalers
to e-commerce, says B2B e-commerce expert
Atlanta Light Bulbs, a family owned distributor
founded in 1981, has been selling online to
corporate buyers of general and specialty light
bulbs and related products since 2001.
But to maintain its edge as a distributor to
commercial and industrial customers, it’s doing
a lot to upgrade its back-end business software
systems and website features to keep its
e-commerce operation up to date and relevant.
Several years ago Atlanta Light Bulbs swapped
out a cumbersome and nearly 15-year-old,
mostly homegrown e-commerce platform for
a new platform. The new e-commerce system
did away with the hand-coded web pages that
sometimes took Atlanta Light Bulbs developers
hours to code a single product change on up to
12 pages.
The new technology has enabled the lighting
distributor to introduce new website features,
including one tool that lets buyers calculate an
order and submit a price they are willing to pay,
and another that lets buyers receive a detailed
quote on the website or via a mobile app, along
with an optional emailed checkout link to
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 3
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
INTRODUCTION
Andy Hoar. “The time is at hand for distributors
and wholesalers,” says Hoar, CEO of consulting
firm Paradigm B2B. “You can’t opt out of digital.”
Many distributors and wholesalers are feeling
the competitive heat from Amazon.com,
both from its traditional marketplace and its
expanding business-to-business unit, Amazon
Business. Some companies have chosen to
sell their products on Amazon, noting it’s too
big to pass up, but they balance sales volume
growth with the looming possibility of Amazon
dominating their market.
Apart from the business challenges, distributors
and wholesalers know Amazon.com shapes
online consumer purchasing and many of those
customers also are responsible for buying for
their companies. Meeting their B2B buyers’
needs means sellers are creating—and regularly
revising—their e-commerce strategies.
Many distributors and wholesalers are growing
sales through their B2B e-commerce sites as
they add new customers, offer new products and
develop or purchase technology that helps their
customers configure products and manage the
ordering and purchasing processes. This report
offers real-world examples of their successes and
offers a view of their current and future plans
for B2B e-commerce. It also provides key best
practices on specific key topics such as business
strategy and systems integration, provided by
Brian Beck, senior vice president, e-commerce
strategy at Guidance, an e-commerce design and
development agency.
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP REASONS
FOR SELLING ONLINE?
(Multiple responses possible)
To increase sales 71.1%
To reach new customers or markets 56.7%
To sell direct to distributors, wholesalers,
dealers and retailers
50.5%
To sell direct to consumers 48.5%
Cut operating costs 44.3%
Competitive pressure 38.1%
Free sales reps to sell complex products 37.1%
Introduce customers to more product lines 37.1%
Brand recognition 36.1%
Other 6.2%
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey
4 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION 2
How distributors and wholesalers run with
e-commerce
OVERVIEW 5
Emerging B2B e-commerce strategies 6
Amazon Business ramps up marketing 14
Q&A: Tech Data 19
CONCLUSION 23
CASE STUDIES 24
Systems Integration: Atlanta Light Bulbs 25
Systems Integration Best Practices 27
Business Strategy: Cardinal Health 28
Business Strategy: Geriatric Medical 31
Business Strategy Best Practices 34
Marketing—Personalization: Zoro com 35
Marketing Best Practices 37
Customer Service: SustainableSupply com 38
Customer Service Best Practices 40
Site Design: W W Grainger 41
Site Design Best Practices 42
SPONSORED Q&A
Oracle NetSuite 8
Insite 16
ABOUT Our Sponsors 44
ABOUT B2BecNews Research 45
CHARTS
What are your top reasons
for selling online? 3
What percentage of your B2B e-commerce
sales are from recurring orders? 7
What are your top e-commerce
priorities for 2018? 10
By how much will you increase
your spending? 11
Where will you spend more? 11
Who is the top B2B e-commerce
decision maker? 12
What percentage of total sales are
B2B e-commerce sales? 12
What features and functions does your
B2B site offer? 13
What are your top priorities for
new features and functions? 13
What are your biggest challenges
in building your B2B
e-commerce business? 23
OVERVIEW
6 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
OVERVIEW
DISTRIBUTORS RAMP UP FOR
MORE E-COMMERCE
involved with digital commerce, says Andy Hoar,
a leading B2B e-commerce expert and CEO of
consulting firm Paradigm B2B. “You can’t opt out
of digital.”
One example is how Tech Data handled the
touchy issue of getting sales reps to embrace
a new e-commerce technology and strategy.
Reps in particular can resist e-commerce
technology because of a perceived threat to
their livelihood, and it also can be difficult to
get buy-in from all concerned—particularly
from employees and managers accustomed to
doing things “the old way.”
But there are ways to move such projects ahead
with strong support, says John Tonnison,
Tech Data’s executive vice president and chief
information officer.
The company used a change management
tactic—FOMO or “Fear of Missing Out—to
gain support among employees, department
heads and executives for an e-commerce
application the company offered its sales
executives recently, Tonnison said in a keynote
presentation at a B2BecNews Executive Seminar
in New York in October 2017.
By Bill Briggs
Tech Data Corp. has made a living of adapting to
its marketplace. The multibillion-dollar global
distributor of electronics and I.T. products has
been in business more than 40 years and it’s
been selling online since 1998.
Tech Data posted record sales in fiscal 2018,
growing by 40.2%, to $36.78 billion from
$26.23 billion in 2017. Tech Data didn’t break
out e-commerce revenue for the year, but CEO
Robert Dutkowsky said earlier in fiscal 2018
that more than half of sales are online and
over 95% of its inventory is purchased digitally.
Using that formula, more than $18.39 billion of
its 2018 sales were through digital commerce,
which Tech Data defines as sales through its
e-commerce site, Shop.TechData.com, and
through electronic data interchange, or EDI.
Tech Data’s steady shift to business-to-business
e-commerce stems from its innovative approach
to developing tools to support its changing
online sales strategy. Its approach serves as
an example of how distributors can keep up
with the broad transition to digital commerce,
and expand how they interact with customers
while increasing sales. “The time is at hand for
distributors and wholesalers” to get directly
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 7
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW
users at other businesses—37% say freeing up
sales reps to sell complex products is among
their main reasons for selling online.
Creating a new channel for repeat orders can
provide sales reps more time to concentrate on
more lucrative sales. Nearly one-third (31%) of
survey respondents derive more than half of their
company’s online sales from recurring orders
and a like amount get 10% or less that way.
Increasing the rate of recurring orders online can
give reps back a precious commodity: time.
Realizing that not all members of its sales
force were keen to adopt online tools to help
customers serve themselves online, Tech Data
started the project with a sales executive who
helped develop the online sales tool and used
it with his own customers to share such data
as available inventory and order status. The
FOMO strategy—or what Tonnison also called
a “change management trick”—worked well
when the initial sales executive offered the new
online tool to his own clients and soon started
showing improved sales results. When other
sales managers became aware of his success,
there was little need to persuade them to use it,
Tonnison noted. They willingly came on board.
Tonnison said Tech Data has learned to blend
its e-commerce in other ways with sales and its
global network of resellers—a key strategy to
maximize interactions with customers and sales.
It takes extra steps to share key customer and
product data with resellers, for example, and the
distributor is careful to set its online pricing so as
not to undercut the negotiations of its sales reps.
Garnering buy-in from sales reps—and even
top management—is a challenge many
distributors and wholesalers face. One way to
do it is convincing them that e-commerce tools
can help their customers serve themselves by
placing recurring orders online, thus freeing
up reps’ time to pursue new customers or
bigger sales with existing clients. According to
a March B2BecNews survey of 122 distributors,
wholesalers and dealers—companies that sell
products from branded manufacturers to end
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR B2B
E-COMMERCE SALES ARE FROM
RECURRING ORDERS?
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey
10% or less
31.0%
10.1% to 25%
18.3%
25.1% to 50%
19.7%
More than 50%
31.0%
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 10
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW
machine-to-human interaction and machine-to-
machine interaction,” Hoar says. “In addition,
competitors in complementary spaces today can
easily add new lines of business, new product
categories, and new SKUs—and make a run at
someone else’s core business.”
Many distributors and wholesalers are onboard
with the concept. Already about 62% of them
have an e-commerce site, according to the
survey. And of those that don’t, 35% expect to
launch one in six months or less, 26% plan to go
live within one year and 19% expect to launch
one within two years, the survey found.
There’s much at stake for distributors and
wholesalers. Today, B2B e-commerce in the
United States is a $900 million market that
is expected to top $1 trillion in 2019, says
Forrester Research Inc. Getting a share of that
business means distributors and wholesalers
will need to spend more on e-commerce. Survey
respondents agree: 84% plan to increase
spending on B2B e-commerce over the next 12
months. The remainder do not.
Distributors and wholesalers offer many reasons
for adding or beefing up an e-commerce site,
according to the B2BecNews survey. Increasing
sales is the top reason why they sell online,
cited by 71% of the executives surveyed. But
many distributors and wholesalers also enter
e-commerce as a way to reach new customers,
a reason named by 57% of the companies
surveyed.
Among the other top reasons:
Sell direct to other businesses: 51% want to
sell products directly to other distributors and
wholesalers, along with dealers and retailers.
Reach consumers: 49% want to sell directly
to consumers.
Trim costs: 44% want to reduce operating
costs.
Keep up with other companies: 38% are
meeting pressure from competitors to sell
online.
Showcase new products: 37% want to
introduce their customers to more product
lines.
Keeping up with current and future competitors
and meeting customer expectations should be
key factors driving distributors and wholesalers
to e-commerce. “Every B2B company on
the planet must change, in many cases
fundamentally, to accommodate new forms of
WHAT ARE YOUR TOP E-COMMERCE
PRIORITIES FOR 2018?
(Multiple answers possible)
Increasing online sales 77.9%
Increasing traffic to e-commerce site 54.7%
Increasing average order value 45.3%
Increasing site conversion rate 36.8%
Improving fulfillment operations 29.5%
Increasing ROI of digital marketing 27.4%
Launching sales on Amazon and other web marketplaces 23.2%
Redesigning website 21.1%
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 11
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW
rather those of other manufacturers, the
company recognizes the need to upgrade its
website. “We want to be less reliant on our
distribution business and focus on our branded
products,” says Matt Wingham, director of
e-commerce, medical products and services.
“We are trying to become more of a products
company, products we sell and source.”
To get there, the medical supply arm of the
$130 billion pharmaceutical and medical
equipment and supplies company is expanding
its branded product lines and plans to upgrade
the customer experience by making it easier
to find products and associated details. “Our
strategy is to present products in their best light
by investing in product content, and to be there
when the customer wants to search,” he says.
Wingham didn’t get into specifics but notes
that Cardinal Health has made a “substantial
investment in the technology and people to
support the new site.”
Like Cardinal Health, 56% of distributors and
wholesalers target technology for increased
B2B e-commerce spending, while marketing
spending led the way at 65%. Investing in site
design and staffing were deemed important
areas, by 46% and 29% of respondents,
respectively.
Who makes those B2B e-commerce purchasing
decisions? For 52% of distributors and
wholesalers its top brass, with titles such as CEO,
president and general manager. For 10%, there
is no top B2B e-commerce decision maker.
More than 67% of distributors and wholesalers
plan to increase B2B e-commerce spending by
up to 25% and only 5% have no plans to boost
such spending.
As the medical products distributor segment
of Cardinal Health Inc. refocuses its business
strategy on selling its own branded products
BY HOW MUCH WILL YOU INCREASE
YOUR B2B E-COMMERCE SPENDING?
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey.
Total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
10.1% to 25% 40.3%
10% or less 27.3%
25.1% to 50% 18.2%
More than 50% 9.1%
No plans to increase 5.2%
Will cut spending 0%
Marketing 64.6%
Technology 56.3%
Site design 45.8%
Staffing 29.2%
Customer service 18.8%
Other 4.2%
WHERE WILL YOU SPEND MORE?
(Multiple responses possible)
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey.
Total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 12
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW
While 25% of survey respondents pull in more
than half of their sales from e-commerce, many
have far to go: a similar number (24%) get only
2% or less of all sales from online sources.
Those distributors and wholesalers that have
committed to B2B e-commerce offer a range
of features and functions on their websites,
and have plans for more. That’s because
the complex nature of online sales for B2B
companies, including the need to exchange
data internally with such systems as enterprise
resource planning and customer relationship
management software, along with handling
quotes, pricing and product specifications, calls
for sophisticated website functions.
Plans to build and grow a B2B e-commerce
operation typically must address the needs of
individual buyers as well as their purchasing
managers, for example, and meet a balance of
both self-service e-commerce and purchases
supported by an experienced salesforce, says
John Bruno, senior analyst for B2B e-commerce
at Forrester Research Inc.
But B2B organizations often fail at executing
such plans, not necessarily because their
goals are out of reach, but more likely because
they lack such details as identifying which
individuals from which departments are
responsible for specific tasks, and researching
best practices that successful online businesses
have deployed, Bruno said in a March Forrester
report on strategies to improve B2B e-commerce
execution.
Distributors and wholesalers like Tech Data and
W.W. Grainger Inc. already pull in more than half
of their revenue from e-commerce. Grainger, a
supplier of maintenance, repair and operating
products, got 56%—$5.84 billion—of all fiscal
2017 revenue from e-commerce. The company’s
e-commerce channels include websites, EDI,
its KeepStock managed inventory service and
vending machines, and e-procurement systems.
CEO/president/general manager 51.6%
CMO/EVP/SVP/VP/director marketing 19.4%
E-commerce EVP/SVP/VP/director 12.9%
We don’t have one 9.7%
CIO/EVP/SVP/VP/director information technology 6.5%
WHO IS THE TOP B2B E-COMMERCE
DECISION MAKER?
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey.
Total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
WHAT PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL SALES
ARE B2B E-COMMERCE SALES?
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey.
Total exceeds 100% due to rounding.
2% or less 23.9%
2.1% to 5% 8.5%
5.1% to 10% 15.5%
10.1% to 25% 15.5%
More than 25% 11.3%
More than 50% 25.4%
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 13
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW
Almost 44% of distributors and wholesalers have
integrated CRM and ERP systems and nearly
half (46%) have links to social networks on their
websites. Live chat is a popular feature among
37% of companies and 24% offer mobile apps, a
must for enabling roving buyers to place orders
on the fly.
High on distributors and wholesalers’ site
feature wish lists are faster search, cited by 56%,
more detailed product descriptions and content
(50%) and advanced analytics (48%).
The key to growth for distributors and
wholesalers is in learning how their targeted
customers want to shop and offering them a more
valuable online buying experience, Paradigm
B2B’s Hoar said at a conference last year. How
they develop and refine their B2B e-commerce
strategy will determine how they fare.
WHAT FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS
DOES YOUR B2B SITE OFFER?
(Multiple responses possible)
Links to social networks 46.1%
Integration with CRM and ERP systems 43.8%
Bulk pricing 37.1%
Live chat 37.1%
Negotiated contract pricing 36.0%
Request for quote 36.0%
Customer ratings and reviews 30.3%
Product recommendations 29.2%
Video 29.2%
Custom approval workflows for clients 23.6%
Mobile apps 23.6%
Automatic reordering 20.2%
Product configuration 19.1%
Other 6.7%
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey
WHICH ARE YOUR TOP PRIORITIES FOR
NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS?
(Multiple responses possible)
Faster search 55.7%
Deeper product descriptions and related content 50.0%
Advanced analytics 47.7%
Automatic reordering 35.2%
Integration with customer relationship management 35.2%
Product recommendations 31.8%
Customer reviews and ratings 29.6%
Custom approval workflows for clients 27.3%
Integration with enterprise resource planning 25.0%
Mobile apps 25.0%
Live chat 23.9%
Password-protected access to customized pages for
customers
22.7%
Product configuration 22.7%
Negotiated pricing 21.6%
Request for quote 21.6%
Bulk pricing 20.5%
International shipping 20.5%
Video 19.3%
Links to social networks 18.2%
Mobile site 18.2%
Other 2.3%
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey
14 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
OVERVIEW
AMAZON GETS
DOWN TO BUSINESS
can compete with—and also sell through—
Amazon’s B2B site. “It is also a sign of the level
of importance that Amazon is giving to Amazon
Business. By design, Amazon’s units all compete
with one another for visibility on Amazon.com.
By providing a level of exposure to its ‘Back to
Business’ promotion, Amazon is clearly signaling
that Amazon Business is a priority for the
company.”
B2B companies can learn from Amazon’s
strategy, Beck adds. “Amazon is best in the
world at driving e-commerce volume, and B2B
By Paul Demery
In what has become an annual marketing
campaign, in January 2018 Amazon.com
ran a “Back to Business” promotion—at
Amazon.com/backtobusiness—with deals on
more than 1,500 products across 15 categories.
The Back to Business promotional campaign,
which ran until Feb. 10, is part of an effort to
get more customers of Amazon.com to register
on Amazon Business. Featured prominently
under these promotions on the landing page on
Amazon.com is a banner ad soliciting visitors
to register for an account on
Amazon Business.
“Amazon’s Back to Business
promo is another sign of
how the e-commerce giant
is using its e-commerce
expertise to build its business
buyer base in ways it hasn’t
in the past,” says Brian
Beck, senior vice president
of e-commerce strategy
at e-commerce design
and development agency
Guidance, who has written
about how companies
Amazon.com’s “Back to Business” campaign lures buyers with product deals ranging from
paper shredders to business tax software. The landing page for deals features a prominent
ad for registering an account on Amazon Business.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 15
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW: AMAZON BUSINESS
Also in February, Amazon Business extended its
reach into Europe with the launch of a French-
language website and local delivery in France.
Amazon Business now operates in six countries,
including the United States, selling business
and industrial products from its own inventory
and from third-party sellers. Amazon Business
launched in Germany in December 2016 at
Amazon.de/business, in the United Kingdom
in April 2017 at Amazon.co.uk/business, and
in Japan (Amazon.co.jp/business) and India
(Amazon.in/business) in September 2017.
Amélie Véron has been appointed head of
Amazon Business France. She had served as
head of Amazon Incentive for southern Europe
since March 2013. Amazon Incentive is a sales
and marketing service offered to B2B companies.
Features available on Amazon.fr/business are
similar to those offered on the company’s other
European sites and include:
companies can apply similar approaches to their
own marketing efforts—even if they don’t yet
have e-commerce.”
The deals in Amazon’s Back to Business
promotion included a $440 Oreck commercial
floor-cleaning machine marked 56% off at
$191.27, with free shipping; a $39.99 TP-Link
Smart Plug Wi-Fi device marked 50% off at
$19.99, and H&R Block software for processing
business tax returns, with a list price of $79.99,
marked 29% off at $56.99.
Amazon sells a broad range of business,
industrial and scientific products on
Amazon.com, where the seller of record
can be either Amazon itself or third-party
sellers. But on Amazon Business, located at
Amazon.com/business, Amazon itself and
third-party sellers can restrict sales to registered
business customers and provide them with
special contract pricing and other business
account services.
Amazon’s Back to Business promo is another
sign of how the e-commerce giant is using its
e-commerce expertise to build its business buyer
base in ways it hasn’t in the past.
Brian Beck, senior vice president of e-commerce strategy, Guidance
SPONSORED ARTICLE
Wholesalers and distributors invest heavily in their
back-end systems. Data is spread out across disparate
systems. When a commerce environment can integrate
with those systems it becomes the single source of
truth. A lot of rules and business logic are already built
into those back-end systems and no company wants
to spend time replicating or duplicating them. An
e-commerce platform that is designed to be integrated
with the CRM or ERP system can provide people in the
field with the information they need to do their jobs
effectively. Conversely, it can deliver current information
to management to help them make the best decisions
possible for the enterprise on a daily basis.
How can distributors and wholesalers
ensure their e-commerce technology
platform can scale to keep up with company
growth?
Many e-commerce companies that built their business
with a focus on B2C commerce are moving into B2B to
get a slice of the pie. Some of these platforms, though
great for B2C, simply were not built for the complexities
of B2B. There are a lot of idiosyncrasies in B2B and
distributors should never select a platform that requires
numerous customizations. Granted, not all businesses
are the same, and every e-commerce platform should
be able to easily handle extensions. However, it’s
important to look for a platform that has as much native,
out-of-the-box B2B capability as possible. Look for ways
that the platform can handle things like complex pricing,
work flows and multi-location inventory management.
Don’t trust companies that just tell you they can do
something, make them prove it to you.
As more distributors and wholesalers target
B2B e-commerce as a growth opportunity,
what are the biggest obstacles they face,
and how can they overcome them?
The mindset of leadership is one of the biggest
obstacles. It’s important to understand that B2B
e-commerce is more than just a website. Investing in
e-commerce is about driving transformational business
outcomes and taking an outside-in approach. Many
distributors are still selling the way they have since their
beginning. In the meantime, their customers’ buying
habits are changing, resulting in misalignment. When
companies “spin-up” a commerce website, without
taking into account how B2B business is happening
today, they often end up with low digital adoption rates.
Internal and external people involved in the buying
process can benefit from commerce environments and
leaders must make sure their teams and customers are
prepared for adoption and understand the value.
What’s an example of a new e-commerce
site feature that is really helping
distributors/wholesalers?
List management is a new feature that Insite has
introduced. Using lists makes the reordering process
fast and easy, and increases user satisfaction while
driving the user experience. A lot of B2B buying is about
rebuying commonly used items, and when customers
can reorder from a simple list they are able to order
efficiently. Another great feature of list management is
the ability to create collaborative lists. This is particularly
useful for customers in the field working on large
projects that require many items.
Why is it important to integrate a B2B
website with back-end ERP, CRM and other
business operations software?
An executive conversation
with Karie Daudt,
Vice President of Marketing and
Customer Experience,
Insite
eCommerce Engineered
for Wholesale Distribution
Insite provides leading commerce solutions
built for the challenges wholesale distributors
face. Insite believes eCommerce is more than
a website. It’s about driving transformational
business outcomes and enabling everyone in the
complex B2B buying cycle to do their jobs more
efficiently. We are laser focused on wholesale
distribution and always watching the industry to
ensure we’re delivering best-in-class commerce.
If you’re considering launching or continuing
your digital transformation, trust the experts.
www.insitesoft.com/ask-insite
866-746-0377
Your Questions,
Answered here:
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 18
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
OVERVIEW: AMAZON BUSINESS
which automatically creates VAT invoices on
behalf of sellers.
l Capability to integrate with more than 20
third-party procurement applications for
access to Amazon Business, including Coupa
Software, Jaggaer and SAP Ariba.
Amazon reported in December 2017 that
Amazon Business in Germany had more than
150,000 registered buyers and 40,000 sellers,
and more than 90,000 buyers and 30,000 sellers
on its U.K. business site. It also announced
several new features on each site, developed
with feedback from customers. They include
improved ways to manage electronic invoices
and payment records, and access to customized
lists of products.
In October, Amazon Business announced the
launch of Business Prime Shipping, the B2B
version of its Amazon Prime two-day shipping
service for consumers, for its sites in Germany
and the U.S. It did not announced that service
for the Amazon Business sites in France, the U.K.,
India or Japan.
Amazon Business is No. 91 in the 2018 B2B
E-Commerce 300.
l Free premium shipping for orders over 25
euros ($30) on “millions of eligible items.”
l The ability to add a purchase order number
to orders; add multiple users to business
accounts; set spending limits; enable
purchasing approval workflows and gain
visibility into buyers’ expenditures with
Amazon Business analytics.
l Configuring the Amazon Business catalogue
according to a customer’s procurement
policies; administrators at buyers’ companies
can define purchase approval criteria and set
preferred products or restricted categories.
l Reporting and analytics on purchasing
patterns based on custom spending reports.
l Multiple-user business accounts that connect
individuals or departments under one account
and provides visibility into what a business is
spending on the business site.
l Value-added tax-exclusive pricing and VAT
invoicing. As on Amazon Business U.K. and
Amazon Business Germany, buyers can view
pricing with and without VAT on eligible
products. Sellers on Amazon Business in
France can access the VAT Calculation Service,
19 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
Q & A
INNOVATION DRIVES B2B
E-COMMERCE FOR TECH DATA
Its approach serves as an example of how
distributors can keep up with the broad
transition to digital commerce, and expand how
they interact with customers while increasing
sales. Tech Data’s vice president, e-business
David Spindler discusses how the distributor
continues to grow B2B e-commerce in an ever-
changing market.
Describe the types, sizes and geographic
locations of companies that make up the
base of commercial customers at Tech Data.
As a global end-to-end I.T. distributor, Tech Data
provides products, services and solutions to
resellers of all types and sizes around the world.
From small value-added resellers to companies
like CDW, we sell everything from cloud
products and training services to complex data
center solutions. We serve more than 125,000
customers and over 100 countries throughout
the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Tech Data Corp. has a long-term relationship
going on with e-commerce. The multibillion-
dollar global distributor of electronics and I.T.
products has been in business more than 40
years and it’s been selling online since 1998. The
Clearwater, Fla.-based supplier of electronics
products—ranging from computer network
servers and data center technology to desktop
computers and printers—is winning sales
growth, and awards for its website, thanks to its
dedication to business-to-business e-commerce.
Tech Data posted record sales in fiscal 2018,
growing by 40.2%, to $36.78 billion. More than
half of sales are online, the company says,
topping $18.39 billion in fiscal 2018. Tech Data
defines online revenue as sales through its
e-commerce site, Shop.TechData.com, and
through electronic data interchange, or EDI.
Tech Data also won the top B2B award for B2B
E-Commerce Player of the Year in 2017 and
shared the top award for B2B website design
(with manufacturer PacknWood) in the annual
Internet Retailer/B2BecNews Excellence Awards.
(Internet Retailer and B2BecNews are part
of Digital Commerce 360.) The distributor’s
steady shift to B2B e-commerce stems from
its innovative approach to developing tools
to support its changing online sales strategy.
An executive
conversation with
David Spindler,
vice president,
e-business,
Tech Data Corp.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 20
B2B
ECNEWS
DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
Q&A WITH TECH DATA
three areas: new tools, innovative programs and
a focused approach. Exclusive proprietary tools
like Cisco OneSource, AppleCare Attach, Renewal
Source and SPA (Special Pricing Agreement)
Tracker, to name a few, have enabled easier
access to information and ordering for Tech Data
customers, while programs like our Web Priority
give advantages—including pricing, terms and
promotions—to customers placing orders via the
web. Our approach focuses on the engagement
side of I.T.
Executive vice president and chief
information officer John Tonnison said last
year that customer engagement is the key
for B2B companies to add or increase online
sales. What are some examples of how Tech
Data has increased customer engagement?
While we have an effective sales team, we also
have a customer-facing team in I.T. that works
with our customers, vendor partners and
internal customers to best process e-business,
with a focus on pace, cost and efficiency. Our
goal is to create a business-to-consumer-like
experience within our business-to-business
operation and tools. Looking at the large B2C
online companies that customers gravitate
toward—Amazon, Uber, Airbnb and others—
they are all making it easier for customers
to do business with them. We have taken,
and continue to take, a similar approach of
continuous improvement at Tech Data and this
can be seen when using our websites.
How have you been able to get buy-in
from sales managers and reps for using
Tech Data’s commitment to expanding
online revenue goes back nearly two
decades. Last year the company noted
online sales accounted for more than half of
all revenue. What percentage of total sales
are now online?
Online sales still account for more than half of all
revenue.
What has been the biggest challenge to
online expansion?
While it is a continuous challenge to improve
and show the value of electronic ordering by
ensuring our customers/resellers can leverage
the latest and greatest connection tools, as well
as making sure our websites are best-in-class,
the biggest challenge is on the vendor side and
the programs they offer. Tech Data continues to
work to digitize the ordering and information
flow of our vendor offerings and programs to our
customers. A great example is our partnership
with Cisco Systems, who is ahead of the game
when it comes to information flow. Their
Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) tool and
our Tech Data Cisco OneSource solution help
increase speed-to-market for customers selling
subscription products as an example. This is just
one of the many new ways of doing business
that vendors and customers require us to
embrace and keep them and Tech Data relevant
in the ecosystem.
What have been the biggest gains from
online expansion?
At Tech Data, the biggest gains have come from
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 21
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
Q&A WITH TECH DATA
we see a more than 50% increase online and
outstanding sales growth in SMB, we also saw a
number of dormant accounts come back online.
Overall, the program has been a smash hit.
Tech Data attributed Q4 and full-year
growth for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31,
2018, to two key factors: its strategic
refocus as it adapts to the I.T market it
serves and the acquisition last year of
Technology Solutions from Avnet Inc. What
are some examples of Tech Data adapting
to the I.T. market and how Technology
Solutions has contributed to growth overall
and online?
Through the acquisition of Technology Solutions
we gained new customers, new vendor partners
and new geographies. All spell out opportunities
for the online space. Our cloud marketplaces,
for example, are complementary: while Tech
Data’s cloud marketplace was primarily focused
on software-as-a-service, Technology Solutions’
cloud marketplace was primarily focused on
infrastructure-as-a-service. The combination
of these two aligns with one of the overarching
goals of the acquisition—creating the leading
global end-to-end I.T. distributor. As the
integration has progressed and our systems
have connected, we are able to offer even more
value to our customers and vendor partners.
Acquired tools, including R2O (Request to
Order), which manages highly configured orders
both externally and internally, also present great
online opportunities for the new Tech Data.
Hurricane Irma caused power and network
e-commerce and mobile tools in their sales
tactics, and how have you persuaded more
customers to place more orders online?
Traditionally, sales managers, reps and
customers needed to be part of the order
process as it flows through the system to ensure
control. To enable change, increase efficiency
and eliminate fear of the unknown, we have
educated and trained our internal and external
customers on each step of the process. This
has given traditional customers who previously
preferred to order via phone assurance that
the order is in process, to have the confidence
to order online. It’s certainly not an overnight
process and takes consistent reinforcement
and tools like Track Open Order (which allows
customers to follow the order from the time it
was submitted to the time the customer receives
it) to drive this change.
In early 2017 Tech Data announced several
initiatives to improve its electronic sales,
with a particular focus on increased
e-commerce sales to small and mid-sized
businesses. Some improvements cited
include extending web-only pricing and
live chat service along with reduced freight
pricing to more than 12,000 client resellers.
What other initiatives has Tech Data taken
to grow web revenue from small and
mid-sized businesses, and what are some
results?
Tech Data has expanded our Web Priority
program to our entire SMB organization and the
results have been very successful. Not only did
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 22
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
Q&A WITH TECH DATA
How do you see blockchain, internet of
things, and artificial intelligence working
together to improve e-commerce, and how
do they fit into Tech Data’s plans?
They all play a role in our strategy, specifically
investing in next-generation technologies and
digitally transforming our business. IoT, for
example, has already gained strong traction at
Tech Data and we have invested in people and
tools to grow this practice with our customers
and vendors. Some of the things we are doing
with notification, for example, fall directly into
IoT. Enabling customers to see every stage of an
order requires a number of internal systems to
have triggers and show progress. If you apply
this to the internet of things and look at the
digital world, they align. This is a very exciting
part of I.T. and the journey ahead.
outages in and around Tech Data’s
headquarters in Florida last year, impacting
the company’s ability to communicate with
customers via normal methods (including
via the web). Any lessons learned from that
weather event?
While power and network outages caused by
Hurricane Irma forced the temporary closure
of our Clearwater headquarters, Miami sales
office and logistics center, and Georgia facilities
for parts of two days in September 2017, Tech
Data’s systems did not fail and our operations
were never compromised. As part of our crisis
situation planning, we thoroughly reviewed
our actions and resources following the event
to determine ‘did-wells’ and ‘do-betters.’ We’re
confident that we have the right resources,
systems and plans in place to be more than
adequately prepared for any future weather
event and further reduce any unexpected down
time.
‘Hurricane Irma forced temporary closure of our Clearwater
headquarters and Miami and Georgia facilities, but our
operations were never compromised.’
23 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CONCLUSION
Many distributors and wholesalers already
have shaped their B2B e-commerce strategies
and tactics and most of them acknowledge it’s
a continuous process. Those companies that
have developed or upgraded e-commerce sites
and deployed related technology have done so
based on their own experiences, their customers’
evolving purchasing habits and desires, and
their competition. B2B e-commerce strategies
are fluid concepts for those already getting
tangible results from online sales and most
are prepared to adjust their plans to meet—or
anticipate—the customer’s preferences.
As B2B e-commerce continues to evolve with
technologies like artificial intelligence that
predicts buyer behavior and recommends
products buyers are likely to buy, distributors
and wholesalers who have modern, flexible
e-commerce platforms will be in the best
position to take advantage of these technologies
and win more sales.
WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN
BUILDING YOUR B2B E-COMMERCE BUSINESS?
(Multiple responses possible)
Lack of money 41.5%
Resistance from customers to buying online 26.6%
Difficulty in recruiting e-commerce personnel 21.3%
Lack of support from top executives 21.3%
Resistance from internal sales department 20.2%
Competition from Amazon 16.0%
Other 16.0%
Source: B2BecNews 2018 Distributor/Wholesaler E-Commerce Survey
CASE
STUDIES
25 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CASE STUDIES
SYSTEMS INTEGRATION:
ATLANTA LIGHT BULBS
and where they need to. Atlanta Light Bulbs
carries an inventory of 9,800 products from a
network of 110 vendors in such categories as
light bulbs, fluorescent light fixtures, medical
lamps, solar-compatible lamps, lighting
accessories and wire-cutting tools.
The new technology has enabled the lighting
distributor to introduce new website features,
including Price Waiter, a tool that lets buyers
calculate an order and submit a price they are
willing to pay, and QuoteNinja, which lets buyers
receive a detailed quote on the website or via a
mobile app, and an optional emailed checkout
link to complete the purchase through the
distributor’s online shopping cart.
In 2017, Atlanta Light Bulbs, No. 231 in the B2B
E-Commerce 300, posted B2B e-commerce
sales of $3.2 million, up 6.7% from $3 million in
By Mark Brohan
Atlanta Light Bulbs, a family owned distributor
founded in 1981, has been selling online to
corporate buyers of general and specialty light
bulbs and related products since 2001.
But to maintain its edge as a distributor to
commercial and industrial customers, it’s doing
a lot to upgrade its back-end business software
systems and website features to keep its
e-commerce operation up to date and relevant.
“We tear the guts out of things sometimes,” says
CEO Doug Root.
In 2015 Atlanta Light Bulbs swapped out a clunky
and nearly 15-year-old, mostly homegrown
e-commerce platform for a new platform from
BigCommerce Pty. The new e-commerce system
from a commercial provider did away with the
hand-coded web pages that sometimes took
Atlanta Light Bulbs developers hours to code a
single product change on up to 12 pages, Root
says.
The new e-commerce platform lets Atlanta Light
Bulbs developers use application programming
interfaces, or APIs—sets of software instructions
for integrating software applications—to make
changes to product pages nearly instantly when
DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE
ATLANTA LIGHT BULBS
www.AtlantaLightBulbs.com
Headquarters: Tucker, Ga.
Year founded: 1981
Product line: Atlanta Light Bulbs carries a range of
lighting products from more than 100 manufacturers,
including commercial lighting fixtures and controls,
replacement sockets, ballasts and LED bulbs. Clients
include contractors, electricians and designers.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 26
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CASE STUDIES • SYSTEMS INTEGRATION: ATLANTA LIGHT BULBS
“Everything is all about complete transparency,
so with a new ERP system tied to our front end,
all of us will know where product data and order
status stands,” he says. “The nature of B2B
e-commerce is changing and older purchasing
agents and corporate buyers are being
replaced with younger buyers—in many cases
millennials—who don’t want to talk to a sales
agent or make the trek to a warehouse or store
to place orders. For large orders, you need to get
a quote—and the modern millennial B2B buyer
doesn’t want to have to pick up a phone to do
that. Today’s B2B buyers just want to get things
done—right then and there.”
A new ERP system in conjunction with a better
e-commerce system is helping Atlanta Light
Bulbs attract and retain more customers
and generate bigger orders that had seemed
out of reach under Atlanta Light Bulbs’ prior
technology setup. For instance, the average B2B
ticket on the distributor’s website is about $40,
but specialty orders can be much higher—and
now can be more easily processed online thanks
to the ability of the new site to integrate with
the ERP system and pull the correct product and
pricing information.
Many large hardware and home improvement
retail chains may only stock lighting products
2016. But if the company expects to hit its B2B
e-commerce sales target of $4 million in 2018,
it needs to keep adding better functionality
and even more web features, Root says. “We
got complacent once when an old clunky
system was making good money, and then our
competitors wised up to e-commerce,” he says.
“We aren’t complacent anymore.”
These days the biggest forthcoming
change is moving the company’s present
enterprise resource planning system from the
BigCommerce platform to a new ERP system
from Oracle NetSuite, a unit of Oracle Corp. With
a new ERP system linked to its e-commerce site,
Atlanta Light Bulbs will have better and more
integrated product data, Root says. That, in turn,
will enable the distributor to add tools or refine
existing features for generating self-service
quotes, account self-management, user-specific
pricing, order tracking and other features.
Better integrated technology systems will
replace what Root says is too much siloed
information on sales and inventory within his
company’s software systems for its multiple
selling channels, including its showroom,
telephone sales, and orders received from
resellers and overseas buyers.
‘We tear the guts out of things sometimes.’
Doug Root, CEO, Atlanta Light Bulbs
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 27
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CASE STUDIES • SYSTEMS INTEGRATION: ATLANTA LIGHT BULBS
Despite having a long tenure and lots of
expertise selling to corporate buyers online,
e-commerce only accounts for about one third of
the company’s annual sales of about $12 million,
Root says.
Nonetheless, the online channel helps it stand
out among business buyers. “We’re a small
business, and e-commerce made us a really
well-known player in the lighting market,” Root
says. “We need to differentiate in an increasingly
competitive B2B online market.”
in seven or eight categories, Root says. But
new and integrated ERP and e-commerce
systems let Atlanta Light Bulbs stock lighting
products—including many specialty items such
as particular types of light emitting diodes, LED
products—that other websites may not carry.
“Specialty orders are pretty big ticket,” Root
says. “We have a single order we are processing
now for $6,700.”
Improved customer-facing and back-end
business operations software systems are giving
Atlanta Light Bulbs better ways to keep buyers
coming back, even if they abandon a shopping
cart.
Atlanta Light Bulbs has reduced its shopping cart
abandonment rate by 29% with such programs
as RewardCamp, which provides customers
credits every time they buy something; and its
QuoteNinja mobile app generated more than
$100,000 in orders within 90 days post-launch.
QuoteNinja lets Atlanta Light Bulbs customers
request a price they would pay for bulbs or
related products, and receive back a quote,
typically within the same day. Buyers next have
the option to change or modify the quote for
the quantity and product price they would pay
and, if accepted by Atlanta Light Bulbs, use a
purchase link to complete the order.
“Customers get a message that says we’ve
accepted their offer, or if their suggested price
is too low, we offer them a different deal,” Root
says.
B
ES
T
PR
A
C
TI
C
ES
SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
ASSESS AND DEVELOP
Start off right. Start during the strategic
planning phase by documenting systems,
integration points and data flows. This helps
inform the scoping effort and associated
costs to deploy e-commerce.
Use expertise. Leverage a systems
integrator who is knowledgeable and
has documented expertise and verifiable
references on the e-commerce technology
being deployed, including integration
experience with your legacy systems such
as ERP.
Big job. Expect integration to be one of your
largest efforts in deploying e-commerce.
Systems integration can be the most difficult
and complex portion of building and
launching an e-commerce site. Your internal
resources that are familiar with your existing
systems will need to allocate considerable
time to this effort.
Source: Guidance.com
28 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CASE STUDIES
BUSINESS STRATEGY:
CARDINAL HEALTH
business conducts the majority of its electronic
transactions via EDI, there’s a desire among
its hospital, surgery center and medical office
customers to get more medical supplies
information online.
“EDI is the traditional way customers place orders
and is for the majority of our customers today,”
Wingham says. “Most customers who use EDI still
log into our website and research products. That’s
our chance to engage with them and help them
find the right products, to show how we can solve
their need.” More than 90% of Cardinal Health
orders are electronic, counting EDI, and to date
only a small percentage of orders are placed on
the e-commerce site, he says.
But customers haven’t had all the online
tools they want, Wingham says. “Our current
e-commerce experiences do not fully meet our
By Bill Briggs
Cardinal Health Inc. wants to be more than a
distributor of medical supplies. As the medical
supply arm of the $130 billion pharmaceutical and
medical supplies company expands its branded
product lines, it plans to upgrade the customer
experience and make it easier to find products and
associated details.
A three-year process is under way and
a single medical products website, at
CardinalHealth.com, will combine two existing
online portals to give customers more direct
access to all of its products, says Matt Wingham,
director of e-commerce, medical products and
services.
“We want to be less reliant on our distribution
business and focus on our branded products,”
Wingham says. “We are trying to become more of a
products company, products we sell and source.”
Branded lines include surgical gloves, lab jackets
and coats, isolation gowns, and patient recovery
and monitoring products.
The medical business of Cardinal Health
accounts for about 10% of overall annual
revenue, Wingham says. And while the medical
DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE
CARDINAL HEALTH
www.CardinalHealth.com
Headquarters: Dublin, Ohio
Year founded: 1971
Product line: Cardinal Health manufactures and
distributes medical products and pharmaceuticals to
hospital systems, pharmacies, ambulatory surgery
centers, clinical laboratories and physician offices,
and offers logistics services.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 29
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CASE STUDIES • BUSINESS STRATEGY: CARDINAL HEALTH
Wingham joined Cardinal Health three years ago
with a digital marketing agency background. At
Cardinal, he was charged with building a team
to help market and merchandise products and
launch a new website. “We’ve been able to
build a talented team of internal and external
resources passionate about helping customers,”
he says. The new site will focus on improving
the product experience and include cart
and checkout capabilities and will combine
individual sites targeting acute care (hospitals),
surgery centers and laboratories.
The new e-commerce site will span all three
healthcare categories and his team is tailoring
product listings by customer segment and
personalizing the online buying experience,
Wingham says. It also will be responsive,
automatically rendering properly on any size
device. A select group of customers has offered
feedback on the new site and are testing it along
the way.
Wingham declined to offer specifics, but notes
customers’ needs and products are hard to find.
Our customer wants to use the site to search,
find and purchase products.”
Cardinal Health’s new website, slated to
launch sometime in spring of 2018, will serve
up “better product information and enable
ordering through an efficient shopping cart
and checkout experience,” Wingham says.
That’s because hospital-based customers,
for example, could use the site to search
for products and then alert their materials
management department to place the order,
based on existing purchasing agreements
and contracts, he says. “We’re not trying to
influence the way they purchase,” he notes.
Instead, the goal is to provide information on
branded products as well as those made by
other manufacturers.
“Our strategy is to present products in their best
light by investing in product content, and to
be there when the customer wants to search,”
Wingham says.
‘Our current e-commerce experiences do not fully
meet our customers’ needs and products are
hard to find. Our customer wants to use the site to
search, find and purchase products.’
Matt Wingham, director of e-commerce, medical products and services, Cardinal Health
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 30
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • BUSINESS STRATEGY: CARDINAL HEALTH
Cardinal Health has made a “substantial
investment in the technology and people to
support the new site.”
On the technology side, Cardinal Health is
working with several key vendors, including IBM
Corp. for its WebSphere Commerce e-commerce
platform; Adobe Systems Inc. for the customer-
facing side, personalization and analytics;
and, for systems integration, a combination of
internal technology staff and consulting firms
SapientRazorfish and Accenture.
The new website aims to complement the
efforts of about 1,600 Cardinal sales reps on
the medical supplies side, using analytics to
provide them more and better information on
what customers want to know about products,
Wingham says.
Cardinal Health’s customers have growing
expectations of performance from B2B
e-commerce sites similar to the retail sites they
also shop on for everyday items like shoes and
apparel, Wingham says. But companies like
Cardinal Health have greater responsibilities
in terms of access to products needed in
healthcare, he adds. “Our approach is: If we
make it difficult for customers to find products,
we are negatively influencing the quality of care.
Shoes and apparel are important, but we need
make it easy to buy from us. We are passionate
about providing a great experience.”
31 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CASE STUDIES
BUSINESS STRATEGY:
GERIATRIC MEDICAL
supply incontinence products to healthcare
facilities throughout the state that care for
nearly 2 million people covered by Medicaid
health insurance—is expected to save the state
$3.7 million per year, according to a document
issued by the Executive Office of Health and
Human Services, the agency that awarded the
contract and administers the Medicaid program,
known as MassHealth.
Healthcare facilities participating in the
MassHealth program will still be free to purchase
incontinence products from other suppliers,
though the state has recommended they
purchase from Geriatric Medical for the best
mix of product, pricing and service. “Geriatric
Medical will work with the Executive Office
of Health & Human Services to ensure that
MassHealth members will receive clinically
By Paul Demery
When the state of Massachusetts reviewed
medical products distributors for a “preferred
supplier,” it chose regional mid-size firm
Geriatric Medical for its mix of services as well as
products and pricing.
Geriatric Medical and Surgical Supply Inc., a
third-generation family-owned distributor, has
steadily increased its e-commerce sales over the
past several years to where they now account for
more than 80% of total revenue.
Its online strategy is all about giving client
hospitals and nursing homes what they need to
do their jobs better, says Justin Racine, director
of marketing and e-commerce. “We’re focused
on providing the online content and order-flow
processing that our customers are looking for,”
he says.
That focus played a big role in early 2018 when
Geriatric Medical won its bid to become the
preferred supplier of a category of medical
supplies under a state-wide contract awarded
by the Executive Office of Health & Human
Services in Massachusetts, says Geriatric Medical
CEO Jeffrey Siegel. The three-year contract—
under which the distributor has agreed to
DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE
GERIATRIC MEDICAL
www.GeriatricMedical.com
Headquarters: Woburn, Mass.
Year founded: 1945
Product line: Geriatric Medical carries medical
supplies in categories including disposables such
as gloves and syringes; durable medical equipment
including beds and wheelchairs; skin and wound care;
and janitorial. Clients include long-term care facilities
and hospitals.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 32
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CASE STUDIES • BUSINESS STRATEGY: GERIATRIC MEDICAL
Geriatric Medical provides, each of which is
designed to help healthcare facilities provide
better care and abide by strict government
regulations.
One deals with a regulation regarding the safety
of bed rails. The distributor developed a webinar
and other educational materials detailing how
beds must be designed in a way that secures
the mattress while preventing patients from
getting caught between the rails. Its educational
materials include information on products
Geriatric Medical sells that test the beds to
ensure they comply with safety regulations.
Another service involves educating health facility
personnel on how to abide by strict regulations
for cleaning and disinfecting particular areas.
Required cleansers or disinfectants and how
they’re applied can differ based on the area,
such as a patient’s room versus a food service
kitchen, and Geriatric Medical provides
webinars and other materials to show what
personnel must do to ensure their facility passes
inspections by health officials, Racine says.
The distributor typically sells a range of products
in each category based on “good, better, best”
superior products at a lower overall cost to the
Medicaid program while maintaining the vital
services of the existing provider network,” the
distributor says in a notice posted to its website
and approved by the state. The state doesn’t
directly comment publicly on contracts or bids, a
spokesman says. The names of other bidders for
the contract were not available.
To stand out against other, often much larger,
competitors, Geriatric Medical has developed a
policy of serving as a business advisor as well
as product supplier to its customers, Racine
says. Suppliers like Amazon.com Inc., which
has been making overtures in medical supplies
distribution, and other large distributors may
offer lower prices, Racine says. But Geriatric
Medical strives to stand out with specialized
services, he adds.
“We’re not worried from an Amazon standpoint,”
he says. “Their site is vast and focused on so
many areas, and they work from a price point
that gets them into a market. But we’re focused
on creating specialized services that Amazon
can’t touch.”
Racine noted two examples of the services
‘We’re focused on creating specialized services that
Amazon can’t touch.’
Justin Racine, director, marketing and e-commerce, Geriatric Medical
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 33
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • BUSINESS STRATEGY: GERIATRIC MEDICAL
against any competitor,” he says. The privately
held company doesn’t release revenue figures.
Going forward, Geriatric Medical realizes that it
will need to keep improving its services as other
online as well as offline distributors become
more competitive. For example, one envisioned
service would share with customers information
it compiles on the effectiveness of particular
healthcare products. “We want to get to the
point where we can show if this type of wound-
care dressing will improve care and result in a
reduced hospital readmission rate,” Racine says.
with prices that vary accordingly, and it helps
each customer match its needs and budget with
the most appropriate products, he adds. “We’re
the experts knowing the product mix, and we
play the matchmaker,” he says.
The company’s focus on service while offering
more than 30,000 branded products online has
helped it to grow its e-commerce sales from
about 50% of revenue four years ago to about
85% in early 2018, Racine says. The remaining
sales come from phone and EDI orders. “We’re
living proof that any online distributor can win
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 34
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • BUSINESS STRATEGY: GERIATRIC MEDICAL
BUSINESS STRATEGY
KNOW THE CUSTOMER
Start with your customers. Understand
their needs and important website features
by listening closely to them (surveys,
interviews, customer focus groups). Build
website requirements around a customer-
first approach. In the world of distribution,
it’s key to convey your value-add to
customers via online channels—go beyond
just product assortment and price to include
things like product expertise and customer
support options.
Success in e-commerce goes beyond
technology. It takes resources (internal and
external), marketing, internal alignment,
shared metrics and goals, and executive
leadership. These need to be considered
from the outset. Don’t make the ‘build it and
they will come’ mistake. They won’t, if all
you do is launch a website.
Alignment with the sales team is critical.
As your primary interface to your customer,
the sales team can make or break your
e-commerce effort. Fear and resistance
is an understandable reaction from sales
teams that are not informed and involved in
e-commerce, but a fully aligned sales force
can dramatically accelerate online efforts.
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Understand your return on investment.
B2B e-commerce benefits include higher
share-of-wallet from existing customers,
incremental revenue from new customers
and organizational efficiencies. Map these
out, and understand your costs across all
aspects to support the e-commerce effort to
create your ROI model (not just technology.)
Make sure you have a “go to” leader.
Get a leader in place with real authority
and title (vice president or higher), and
look outside the organization for talent.
Many traditional distributors do not have
expertise in building e-commerce. Look to
retail e-commerce veterans as a good place
to gain this talent.
Document your plan. Create a written
plan that is distributed throughout the
organization, including your return
expectations and overall objectives, as well
as tactics to support e-commerce growth,
including marketing, customer adoption,
technology, organizational development,
and sales channel alignment tactics.
The website must be mobile. While
still well under 30% of web traffic for
many B2B companies, mobile traffic is
increasing rapidly for all types of websites
and a B2B website must be easy to use on
smartphones and tablets.
Source: Guidance.com
35 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CASE STUDIES
MARKETING-PERSONALIZATION:
ZORO.COM
product page as it would a returning customer,
as those who have purchased previously
typically are worth more in terms of lifetime
value, Hilbrenner said.
When someone adds items to a shopping cart
and arrives at the checkout page, Zoro moves
him into the “ready buyer” category and
offers related products on the checkout page.
Hilbrenner said this has increased sales for
Zoro.com, but that it’s important not to confuse
a customer ready to buy with lower-priced
items or force him to leave the checkout page to
purchase a related product.
“You don’t want to give the shopper pause,” he
said. “Make it possible to buy in one click and
don’t take them away from the checkout page.”
Zoro has the most information about returning
By Don Davis
Zoro.com has learned how to get personal with
website visitors. The website segments site
visitors into three broad categories and adjusts
what they see accordingly. The personalization
strategy has increased online sales by 8-10% in
a year, e-commerce director Kyle Hilbrenner told
attendees during a June 2017 presentation at
the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in
Chicago.
More than 80% of buyers arriving from Google
land on a product detail page, and Zoro, a
unit of W.W. Grainger Inc. that targets small
businesses, makes those pages the focus of
its personalization tactics for this segment. To
provide the most relevant offers, Hilbrenner
said, Zoro feeds as much information as possible
into the personalization technology it uses from
Kibo, for example the content of the Google ad
the individual clicked on or what search terms
the visitor may have used on the site.
The distributor of industrial MRO products—
maintenance, repair and operations—also
offers complementary products, such as a set
of screwdrivers to go with a level the person is
looking at. At the same time, it might not offer
a new visitor as attractive a discount on the
DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE
ZORO
www.Zoro.com
Headquarters: Mundelein, Ill.
Year founded: 2011
Product line: Zoro offers industrial maintenance,
repair and operations products and office supplies,
including power tools, industrial bearings and
chemicals, safety gear, and janitorial supplies to
manufacturers, resellers and retailers.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 36
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • MARKETING-PERSONALIZATION: ZORO.COM
personalization system, contributing to the
8-10% increase in site revenue, Hilbrenner said.
He declined to disclose Zoro.com’s annual sales.
Grainger, No. 32 in the 2018 B2B E-Commerce
300, reported 56% of total revenue in fiscal
2017—$5.84 billion—came in through its
e-commerce channels, including websites, EDI,
its KeepStock managed inventory service and
vending machines, and e-procurement systems,
a spokesman says.
Speaking with Hilbrenner in the B2B
e-commerce workshop session at IRCE, Danielle
Roberts, product manager for personalization
and e-commerce at Kibo, advised attendees to
avoid common personalization pitfalls. They
include offering recommendations that are
outdated, such as products that are out of stock
or suggesting a site visitor buy something he just
purchased.
She also said recommendations in email should
be updated when the recipient opens the email,
which allows the seller to update the items
promoted based on inventory availability as well
as on any website behavior by the recipient in
the interim since the email was sent.
customers and re-orders the site navigation
for those buyers to feature categories that the
customer has previously purchased from or
browsed. “We may move down office supplies, if
he hasn’t purchased or looked at those items,”
he said. He says this strategy has allowed Zoro,
which has a catalog of 1.5 million items, to show
visitors more of the products likely to be of
interest to them.
Because these returning customers often arrive
via the home page, Zoro makes it easy for them
to re-order items from that page or to buy items
they have recently viewed.
A year after deploying the personalization
system from Kibo—which also provides order
management, e-commerce and omnichannel
technology for both retailers and business-to-
business sellers—Zoro has seen 15-20% of site
visitors engage with product recommendations,
more than Hilbrenner expected, he said. Those
who do interact with recommendations spend
four times more time on Zoro.com than other
visitors and view three times as many pages, he
said.
Overall, the conversion rate on the site has
gone up 1-2% since Zoro implemented the
‘Those who do interact with recommendations spend four times
more time on Zoro.com than other visitors and view three times as
many pages.’ Kyle Hilbrenner, e-commerce director, Zoro.com
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 37
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • MARKETING-PERSONALIZATION: ZORO.COM
MARKETING
GET PERSONAL
Diversity. Great e-commerce sites open
new digital marketing channels—create
a digital marketing plan incorporating
search engine marketing (Google, Bing);
social media, e-mail, display advertising;
and other channels. Marketplaces such as
Amazon Business provide an opportunity
to market your private label products and
even your full line, just keep a close eye on
the disruptive impact they may have on your
industry.
Spread the wealth. Consider re-allocating
some offline marketing spend to online
marketing channels. Take a test-and-learn
approach to find what works best from a
return on advertising spend and customer
acquisition standpoint.
Follow through. Measure new customers
acquired through digital marketing—know
if your marketing is helping to expand your
addressable market.
More diversity. Syndicate content in social
media channels to reinforce your industry
expertise and engage customers across all
channels. Create new short form content
with tips and tricks specifically for sharing
through digital means.
“Smile—you’re on.” Don’t forget video,
which is the most engaging way modern
buyers learn about products and obtaining
product support.
Source: Guidance.com
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38 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CASE STUDIES
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
SUSTAINABLESUPPLY.COM
needed supplier buy-in because, while it holds
some inventory, most orders are drop-shipped.
So far, Sustainable Supply has negotiated free
shipping terms with a few strategic suppliers.
In return for absorbing the shipping fee, those
suppliers’ products get preferred placement
on SustainableSupply.com and in email
promotions, he says. “Freight on brands and
suppliers that are not participating is absorbed
by Sustainable Supply, but is partially offset by
marketing allowances and rebates that we have
in place with these suppliers.”
Through the first nine months of 2017
Sustainable Supply’s sales rose 61%. Sales
usually slow somewhat in December, Fricano
says. But the company likely will surpass its B2B
E-Commerce 300 projection of $20.29 million in
By Bill Briggs
Three years of cultivating new front- and back-
end technology is bearing fruit for Sustainable
Supply Co. LLC. The online distributor of
“green” or “eco-friendly” building materials,
cleaning supplies, and maintenance, repair
and operations products recorded a 67% sales
increase for the third quarter of 2017, says CEO
Brian Fricano.
The massive sales lift resulted from new
technology and a renewed focus on its
customers, Fricano says. “It was a combination
of things, including being hyper-focused on
customer retention,” he says. “In July we rolled
out free shipping on all orders, coupled with
improvements in customer service and loyalty
programs.”
Previously, the free shipping threshold was
$75, but internal analysis showed many orders
topped $75 anyway. “So we looked at how to
lower the barrier for the customer to do business
with us the first time, but also had to have our
supplier partners on board with this,” Fricano
says. “We approached some suppliers late last
year and got several ‘strategic suppliers’ lined
up to take a leap of faith.” Sustainable Supply,
which sells online at SustainableSupply.com,
DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE
SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY
www.SustainableSupply.com
Headquarters: Broomfield, Colo.
Year founded: 2009
Product line: Sustainable Supply offers “green,”
environment-friendly cleaning supplies and
maintenance products including building materials,
restroom products, HVAC equipment, maintenance-
repair-operations and safety supplies. Clients range
from large to small businesses and schools.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 39
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • CUSTOMER SERVICE: SUSTAINABLESUPPLY.COM
Many of Sustainable Supply’s customers are
small to midsize companies and they want to
automate replenishment to avoid devoting time
to the repetitious process, he adds. To use the
automated reorder service, customers choose
from among eligible products, as noted on
product pages, then select the desired delivery
frequency, ranging from one week to six months.
Customers receive an email two days prior to
shipping and can cancel an order any time up
until 24 hours before delivery.
In addition to its rewards program, Sustainable
Supply recently started an account management
program. Larger customers used to working
with sales reps rather than strictly ordering
online have been assigned account and business
managers. Those managers reach out to
customers that tend to place recurring orders
online to try expanding the range of products
they buy, Fricano says. The company also has
a three-member project management unit that
works with small to midsize contractors for
price-quote requests and other services.
Fricano attributes much of Sustainable Supply’s
growth to its extensive technology upgrade.
“We are wrapping up a three-year software
conversion that has helped us scale up the
business, including new enterprise resource
planning, customer relationship management
and financial applications, and a new
e-commerce platform,” he says.
In the past, the company had three different
technology platforms and a stand-alone
2017 online sales. Sustainable Supply is No. 199
in the 2018 B2B E-Commerce 300.
The wholesaler has also improved customer
retention and its bottom line with a rewards
program it rolled out in 2016 and an automated
reorder service. Customers get 5% back on all
purchases and those who regularly reorder
products such as cleaning and breakroom supplies
and toilet paper can determine quantities and
frequency of deliveries, Fricano says.
‘Freight on brands
and suppliers that
are not participating
is absorbed by
Sustainable Supply, but
is partially offset by
marketing allowances
and rebates that we
have in place with
these suppliers.
Brian Fricano, CEO,
SustainableSupply.com
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 40
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • CUSTOMER SERVICE: SUSTAINABLESUPPLY.COM
accounting system performing those functions,
but now is using Oracle NetSuite for all back-
end functions. It planned to go live on the
Magento Enterprise 2.0 e-commerce platform
in December. The long-term I.T. project “sucked
a lot of resources and energy, but we were still
focused on growth,” Fricano says. He estimates
the cost of the new technology at more than
$600,000 but says it would have gone over
$1 million were the systems hosted on-site
rather than cloud-based.
Sustainable Supply also operates specialized
websites Eyewashdirect.com, targeting schools
and businesses, and Portablehandwashing.com,
which sells to food stands. There are plans
for additional, focused websites in the next
several years “in certain product categories as
offensive and defensive acts against companies
like Amazon Business,” Fricano says. First up
will be a website offering building materials for
smaller-scale projects undertaken by property
managers, aiming for rollout sometime in the
first half of 2018.
While it hedges against competition from
Amazon Business, Sustainable Supply does sell
some products on the marketplace. Products
sold through that channel mirror those already
sold on the marketplace, not those more unique
to its own websites, Fricano says. Sustainable
Supply also sells on eBay.com and to a limited
extent through Walmart.com. “We have a toe
in the water,” he says. “Walmart is the best
competitor to Amazon and we think they are
going be a major player.”
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CUSTOMER SERVICE
MAKE THEIR JOBS EASIER
Your web site is your online hub. This is
an opportunity to make your customers’
jobs easier, and drive web usage. Things
like order status checking, service call
scheduling, account maintenance, parts
compatibility checking, accessing technical
manuals and compatibility guides, and more
are all supportable through your website,
and are increasingly expected by today’s
business customers.
Training. Your customer service and
support teams are your front line to your
customers, and need to be involved in the
e-commerce website development process
and trained once it is live. They will be
expected to answer questions on website
usage, and can be an important influence in
site adoption by customers. If you build your
site correctly, it will make their jobs easier
as well.
New duties. If you do e-commerce right,
expect your agents to become less busy due
to higher levels of customer self-service.
This is an opportunity to re-deploy them to
higher value tasks, such as new customer
prospecting and customer satisfaction
efforts
Source: Guidance.com
41 ©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
CASE STUDIES
SITE DESIGN:
W.W. GRAINGER
e-commerce site, launched in June 2017 to
provide quick access to products in a Spartan
format dominated by basic product descriptions
and groupings, will be combined with the flagship
Grainger.com site, he said. And thanks in part to
new tax reforms, Grainger will invest 0.2% of its
capital in its “digital platform,” Macpherson said.
He declined to offer specifics. Grainger’s stock
market capitalization is $15.5 billion, and 0.2% of
that would be more than $30 million.
In launching Gamut.com in June 2017, Grainger
said it was designed with “a proprietary
information system that manages and organizes
a comprehensive list of product attributes,
application-specific imagery and rich, technical
data. This enables the website to generate relevant,
curated search results that help customers quickly
find and purchase the right products.”
By Bill Briggs
W.W. Grainger Inc.’s plans for e-commerce include
combining Gamut.com—a site it designed for fast
search and same-day shipping—with its flagship
site Grainger.com.
Grainger now draws more than half of its revenue
from e-commerce. The supplier of maintenance,
repair and operating products reported overall
growth of almost 3% for fiscal 2017. And 56% of
total revenue—$5.84 billion—came in through its
e-commerce channels, including websites, EDI,
its KeepStock managed inventory service and
vending machines, and e-procurement systems, a
spokesman says.
Grainger’s Other Businesses segment, which
includes its Zoro.com and Japan-based
MonotaRO.com B2B e-commerce sites, grew
12.5%, to $2.12 billion, for the year and 16%, to
$559.4 million, in the fourth quarter. Grainger CEO
D.G. Macpherson attributed most of that Q4 growth
to higher sales volume, in the year-end earnings call
with analysts. Sales growth was primarily driven
by MonotaRO.com in Japan, which offers industrial
products, and Zoro.com in the United States, which
offers off-price products, he said.
Grainger plans to expand online initiatives in
2018, Macpherson told analysts. Its Gamut.com
DISTRIBUTOR PROFILE
W.W. GRAINGER
www.Grainger.com
Headquarters: Lake Forest, Ill.
Year founded: 1927
Product line: Grainger carries maintenance, repair
and operating products, including safety, material
handling and metalworking supplies and equipment.
Clients range across multiple industries such
as commercial, manufacturing, healthcare and
government.
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. 42
B2B
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
CASE STUDIES • SITE DESIGN: W.W. GRAINGER
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SITE DESIGN
SWEAT THE DETAILS
Make a buyer’s job easier. Understand
purchasing workflows, and make it simple
to do these activities online. Adoption flows
from saving B2B buyers time and effort in
the purchasing process, particularly for
items that are frequently re-ordered. If you
are a distributor with a large assortment,
use your product expertise to help the buyer
find which products work together best for
their application.
More of the same. B2B buyers expect to
see the same pricing, product catalog and
ordering features that they get from other
channels like catalogs, sales reps and a call
center—make sure these are in sync before
a launch.
Sweat the details. Take the time to
document requirements and run a careful
e-commerce platform selection process.
Shop around. Look at multiple e-commerce
platform options.
Don’t underestimate user experience and
design. B2B users are also consumers—they
shop on Amazon, and expect a similar easy
online experience from a B2B site.
Source: Guidance.com
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DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
PAUL DEMERY
Editor, B2BecNews
[email protected]
312-362-9534
BILL BRIGGS
Senior Editor, B2BecNews
[email protected]
312-362-0084
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INTRODUCTION
DISTRIBUTORS’ PLAYBOOK FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
©Copyright 2018 B2BecNews & Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
ABOUT B2B ECNEWS RESEARCH
B2BecNews provides manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, dealers, retailers, buyers of business
goods and services, service providers and others with data, analysis and information about the
$1 trillion business-to-business e-commerce market. We publish each year analytical reports on key B2B
e-commerce topics, including online marketplaces, business strategy, customer service, channel and
systems integration, and marketing and social media, among others. The annual B2B E-Commerce 300
database and report each year breaks down the sales, operations, marketing and website metrics of the
leading B2B e-commerce sites and ranks and analyzes the leaders overall and by vertical industry. We
also have a robust custom research department, which provides tailored research products—in-depth
reports, exclusive surveys, raw data pulls and other products—for top B2B e-commerce companies,
consultants, financial analysts and technology companies.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2018, Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved. All Content of the Distributors’ Playbook for B2B E-Commerce B2B
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(collectively, the “Content”), is owned by Vertical Web Media and protected by U.S. Copyright and by applicable intellectual property
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Purchasers and Authorized Recipients of the Content may share such usage with others within his/ her company, but may not copy,
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and Top500Guide.com database research products are owned by Vertical Web Media. Distributors’ Playbook for B2B E-Commerce
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The 2018
B2B E-COMMERCE 300
©Copyright 2017, 2018 Vertical Web Media LLC. All rights reserved.
DigitalCommerce360.com/b2b 2018 B2B E-COMMERCE 300 3
SUMMARY B2BECNEWS
B2B: A MARKET AT
A CROSSROADS
B2B e-commerce is at a crossroads. And the companies who want to stay in the game as sellers must quickly make the right turns regarding commerce strategy and technology investments.
In a market projected to reach $1 trillion by 2019, the stakes are
high. And as the data in this report shows, the companies in the
2018 edition of the B2B E-Commerce 300 are leading the way to
that trillion-dollar mark.
The B2B E-Commerce 300 companies, ranked on their
projected 2017 e-commerce sales, altogether account for an
aggregated $563.65 billion in e-commerce revenue. That’s
63.4% of the estimated total $889 billion in e-commerce sales
in the United States for 2017 projected by Forrester Research
Inc.
The average 2017-over-2016 growth rate in e-commerce
revenue for the B2B E-Commerce 300—at 7.1%—validates the
7.2% increase Forrester gures for the same period for all U.S.
e-commerce sales. Growth rates are often larger among smaller
companies in an expanding market, since it’s easier to produce
higher rates of increase from a smaller base of revenue. But the
fact that the average growth rate of B2B 300 companies is in
sync with Forrester’s industry-wide rate reects the ability of many of
the 300 to continue growing even after they build a large revenue base.
Among the 18 industry categories covered in the B2B E-Commerce
300, however, the annual growth rates vary widely. With several in
low to middle single digits, including Food/Beverage (1.7%), Oce
Supplies (3.5%) and Specialty (6.4%), there are also six in double digits,
The Online
B2B Market
(2017 online sales in billions)
B2B E-Commerce 300
$563.7
Everyone Else
$325.3
Source: B2BecNews, Forrester Research Inc.
63.4%
36.6%
B2B RESEARCH the leader in b2b e-commerce data
ECNEWS
B2B E-COMMERCE 300
RANKINGS, DATA AND ANALYSIS
OF THE 300 LARGEST B2B E-COMMERCE BUSINESSES
2018 EDITION
From the Editors of B2BecNews, a Digital Commerce 360 Brand
The only place where you can find rankings and key
metrics on the 300 companies that control nearly
two-thirds of the $889 billion* U.S. B2B online market
In 2017, the B2B E-Commerce
300 collectively sold
$563.65 billion
The B2B E-Commerce 300
companies represent
63%
of the $889 billion U.S. B2B
online market in 2017
The 300 companies grew their B2B
e-commerce sales in 2017 by
7.1%
double the growth rate of the
overall economy
The B2B E-Commerce 300 is available in two formats
Analysis Report
A 75-page PDF report, analyzing
and ranking the leading B2B
e-commerce players
Online Database & Report
Exact web sales per company, full
company profiles and the analysis
report
digitalcommerce360.com/b2b300/
*A Forrester Research estimate
Distributors' Playbook for B2B E-Commerce
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