Global B2B E-commerce Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Global B2B E-commerce market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 12.36% over the forecast period from 2022 to 2027. B2B e-commerce marketplaces offer various benefits, including scalability, accuracy in analytics, digital capabilities, and a customer-centric approach.

Key Highlights

• Technological advancements such as artificial intelligence and cloud technologies enabled B2B e-commerce companies to deliver improved customer experience. The changing customer expectations and increasing order complexity have necessitated the digitalization of B2B e-commerce.
• With the increased adoption of e-commerce for B2B applications, recognizing and making personalized product recommendations to the customer has increased to analyze the company's performance and further adapt to the changes based on customer behavior.
• Recently, customers are connecting with the brands they trust to perform business. Also, the increase in technology adoption, such as various smart devices, makes it easy for the customers to compare the products and offerings across multiple channels. With such challenges, B2B e-commerce companies are adopting an omnichannel approach for performing business.
• However, with the increasing adoption of B2B E-commerce, there has been a growing concern about cyber security and data protection. Companies are innovating with technology to stay competitive in the market, increasing cybersecurity threats as cyber attackers are constantly honing for vulnerabilities to exploit.
• With the onset of the pandemic, B2B E-commerce has had a massive shift towards digitalization as buyers and sellers have preferred digital self-serve and remote human engagement. Further, due to various lockdowns imposed worldwide, B2B e-commerce has faced severe supply chain disruptions leading to delayed order times and loss of business.

Key Market Trends

Increase in Digitalization across the B2B e-commerce is driving growth

• Efficient information exchange is needed to ensure enhanced customer experience by businesses to meet customer expectations. Companies are increasingly adopting digital solutions and are integrating systems supporting E-commerce such as CMS, ERP, CRM, PIM, and many more. These solutions enable various departments to share valuable data and boost online sales.
• With the increase in the adoption of digital technologies, B2B E-commerce companies have become increasingly aware of order fulfillment operations by integrating order fulfillment software to gain insights and understand the status of order confirmations, on-time delivery performance, and various aspects of order management.
• Further, with technological advancements, businesses and their customers can track end-to-end delivery of orders while operating with multiple partners such as logistics providers, forwarders, and express companies.
• Tracking of order fulfillment generates comprehensive and insightful data on the company's performance. The analysis of the generated data enables companies to analyze and track inefficiencies in areas where the company incurs high and unnecessary costs and rectify them.
• Technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence are implemented by businesses to optimize supply chains to transcend geographical barriers. With the implementation of such technologies, B2B E-commerce companies aim to optomise all touchpoints in the supplychain and achieve automation to increase customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

North America to Account for a Significant Share

• North America is expected to have a significant revenue share compared to other regional markets. Due to the region's financial status, significant investments in cutting-edge technology. The United States is one of the largest regions in North America for B2B e-commerce adoption.
• The use of sophisticated technologies such as cloud computing, AI, big data and analytics, mobility/social media, cybersecurity, and IoT, among others, resulted in innovation and change, supporting development in the North American B2B e-commerce.
• Because of lower communication and infrastructure expenses, enterprises in B2B segment are shifting their operations to e-commerce by digitalization. The B2B E-commerce channel enables the company to reach out to additional clients, resulting in essential firm exposure.
• Marketing is a bigger prospect for various B2B businesses. E-commerce provides a better platform to market the product or services and increase the brand's reach. B2B e-commerce companies in the region also exhibit various marketing techniques to increase their reach.
• United States is home to several key players of the market including Amazon and World Trade. Amazon Business, which started in 2015, is the largest B2B eCommerce marketplace in the U.S., serves nearly 45 states and 80 of the Fortune 100 firms, including Citigroup, Intel, Cisco, and ExxonMobil, to name a few

Competitive Landscape

In the B2B e-commerce business, many firms have expanded and entered the market, resulting in fierce competition. Some of the key players are Amazon.com Inc., Alibaba Group Holding Limited, eBay, Indiamart, Flipkart, and many more. Product launches, high expenses on R&D, acquisitions and partnerships, etc. are the growth strategies such companies adopt to sustain the intense competition.

• July 2022 - Aditya Birla Group-owned Grasim Industries has announced an investment of INR 2,000 Crores over 5 years in developing a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform focused on building materials.
• July 2022 - Balance, the player in B2B marketplace and eCommerce payments, announced Series B Funding of USD 56 million led by Forerunner Ventures with support from Salesforce Ventures, Hubspot Ventures, Lyra Ventures, and Gramercy Ventures. The company aims to utilize the funding to expand its offerings to new, global eCommerce platforms and enable B2B merchants to grow their digital revenue.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
• 3 months of analyst support