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No matter your industry, annual revenue, or team size, all ecommerce retailers had one thing in common in 2020: It was kind of a hard year. Even if demand for your products soared. Even if your conversion rates quadrupled and revenue ballooned. Even then. It was hard work. We salute you. If it all passed you by in a blur, this report has everything you might have missed. 98 of your fellow retailers were kind enough to tell us about their experiences in 2020 - from how they adapted, to what learnings they’re taking with them into the new year. We also noticed interesting industry trends in our own customer data, which will give you some points to ponder in 2021.

By 2020, online marketplaces are expected to account for 40% of the global online retail market. Gartner estimates that 75% of B2B procurement spending will happen via an online marketplace within the next five years, and the simplicity of doing business this way is likely to “create a butterfly effect on the e-commerce trend.How will you keep up with the industry change? What new initiatives will you implement to create a better digital strategy?In our 2020 Trends Report, we take a look at where the B2B marketing community is heading and how you can stay ahead of the curve.

B2B organizations in every industry have been investing heavily in technologies to improve the customer experience and streamline their operations. However, not every organization has made as significant an investment in their accounts receivable (AR) function as they have in other areas. In this report, you will learn which benefits manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers prioritize when searching for accounts receivable automation technologies. You’ll also receive benchmarking information about which investments these organizations have already made and what steps they intend to take to improve the AR function in the future.

In anticipation of the dramatic growth, manufacturers and distributors are getting ready to capture their piece of the pie while better serving customers. The question for manufacturers and distributors is: How? As B2B companies endeavor to answer these questions, and overcome perceived channel conflict, they will explore new, cloud-based digital commerce technologies, seamlessly onboard channel partners, and expand their investments in customer experience (CX) initiatives to ultimately become the purveyors of today’s new experience economy.

Digital transformation is forcing companies to rethink priorities and to shake-up the C-suite, changing roles and responsibilities to match their vision for tomorrow. CIOs, who once were known as technology gatekeepers or even roadblocks, are now charged with being the driver of innovation and change across their company's infrastructure, people and processes.  This report explores why it's more important than ever for you to identify eCommerce tools and services that enable you to say "Yes!" to solving order management and automation challenges with ease.

AI is one of the most popular buzzwords in B2B marketing, but not all marketers are bridging the gap between its potential and its best practices. In this 2019 B2B Online report, we uncover how enterprise B2B companies are transforming their market strategies to strengthen customer relationships and identify the practical ways in which AI will help. We investigate where in marketers’ strategies and their companies’ objectives AI is taking root, and how they are experimenting to innovate engagement with customers using AI technologies.

Access to B2B-related data is improving, making data-driven decisions and awareness across each organization widespread. As this awareness drives upward towards CFOs, they are becoming more involved in business processes across the organization and making practical decisions about the operational futures of their companies. In this report, learn how data technologies help B2B financial leaders connect with operational decision making, visibility, and oversight.

Mobile, cloud, and social technologies have transformed the world of work and play over the past decade. Smartphones, always-on computing, vast storage, instantaneous communications across networks of connected audiences - together these capabilities wrought change that was beyond imagination ten years ago. They will be far less disruptive going forward because they're now mainstream. Consumers and workers have come to expect them. That begs the question of what's next. What technologies will drive continued transformation? How? When?

Looking to learn more about what your peers consider essential when picking a new ecommerce platform? This new report will help you pick out what to prioritize, and why based on the responses of members of B2B Online's event community. Click the image to claim your copy of this free research!

B2B Online is the original and go-to event for Manufacturer and Distributor marketers and digital executives. Withcomprehensive programming to arm executives with the best practices they need to implement and achieve more with onlinetechnology, B2B Online celebrated its 5th dynamic year in 2018, in Chicago. The event brought together 800+ eCommerce anddigital marketing executives in the manufacturing and distribution industries. Click on the report to the left to download!

As manufacturers and distributors transition to digital sales environments, personalization needs to be a top priority and tech investment. Leading industry research shows that B2B companies with effective personalization will outsell less-developed competitors by 30%. In this report, see how leading companies are leveraging data to predict the product interests of their customers, surfacing contextual information to customize interactions, and aiding in customers’ relevant discovery online. 

As B2B customers adopt digital interfaces to conduct business, relationships forged by salespeople must graduate to new digital environments. But companies are concerned they will lose customers when deals conducted online become purely transactional. In digital sales, personal relationships salespeople form with customers become all the more important.Onboarding to Digital analyzes industry pain points and directly consults B2B sales leaders to understand how they are approaching their digital transformations. This report uncover how the direct attention of salespeople will remain relevant in a complex, technology-driven sales environment.

In a complex B2B environment, manufacturers and distributors must provide customers with engaging interactions and experiences that delight them. But with outdated engagement methods, disappointing service models, and insufficient resources, how can they create the ideal customer experience? In this report, we uncover how B2B companies are leveraging sophisticated data to predict pain points, increase the efficacy of marketing and sales communications, and reach the future state of customer experiences.

B2B salespeople continue to use traditional methods of selling, such as engaging buyers via phone calls or even face to face. But time has become a constraint for buyers, and new digital purchasing channels have emerged to speed up the buying process. In this report, we explore the B2B buyer demand for those digital channels versus traditional channels. Buyers acknowledge the “amazing experiences” sellers can provide using digital platforms, which provide greater availability of more products, easier management of operations and relationships, and successful on-time product delivery. Digital channels, including marketplaces, have emerged as the clear, transformative favorites among the youngest buyers in the workforce—Millennials, born from 1977 to 1995—and as a popular choice among other age groups as well.Mirakl, Oracle, and B2B Online surveyed 200 B2B buyers across Latin America, Europe, and North America. Respondents represent only private companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue. The majority of B2B buyers do business with both manufacturers (86%) and distributors (90%). Each respondent is directly involved in their company’s buying processes and represents one of the three age groups measured in the study.