Top B2B eCommerce Trends in 2022 and Beyond

In the last decade, we have witnessed immense eCommerce growth, but a significant disruption occurred in 2020 when a crisis made business owners ask themselves whether the tactics that were working already will work the same or not. Many new changes were observed during 2020, and various new b2b eCommerce software solutions emerged into the market. eCommerce software development also fetched recent changes and how buyers and sellers were doing business previously became a new normal.

To keep up the pursuit and maintain profitability, businesses acquired new trends, which established a new arena into B2B eCommerce. Globally companies started adapting to personalization, omnichannel selling, mobile wallets, etc. Today in 2022, several more trends are emerging and shaping the B2B eCommerce environment to assist in providing seamless, better experiences to their respective customers. Here are some emerging trends that have made eCommerce buying and selling better and will play an essential role in 2022 and beyond.

1.  Personalization of the shopping experience in online medium: It has been found in some research that the spending of consumers increased almost by half when their buying experience was personalised. Many big companies are using the headless solution to provide personalised experiences to customers.

There are a number of personalised solutions apart from AI, which leverage Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to build a customer profile and give marketers the control to market better using various channels. It is important for marketers these days to identify the behavioural and attitudinal attributes. Using this, marketers are giving an end-to-end experience and are creating a loyalty loop.

2. Automation of B2B transactions: Just as personalisation, Automation is also essential to provide B2B clients a smooth customer experience and to improve your reputation in the market. Ecommerce channels are embracing this trend more and more as it reduces the company’s workload and provides the customer with a hassle-free and quick solution. Automation has been majorly implemented in Accounts payables and receivables, faster Reordering and fulfilment, etc.

3. Omnichannel Sales: Businesses have started to understand that an average B2B customer has begun using various channels when buying. For this reason, they have started to close this gap between offline and online. Due to increasing demands from the clients and customers, B2B companies have started adding more and more sales channels such as shopping through mobile or desktop, through telecommunication calls, and physical stores. Businesses that implemented omnichannel sales practices say that they doubled the number of sales in the years.

4. Selling across third-party B2B Marketplaces: For B2B businesses, marketplaces are essential places to sell the merchandise across various extended marketplaces. The ability to attract new customers to third-party marketplaces is a significant advantage of B2B marketplaces. Having more customer base in a new market gets more sales in the global market, and this trend is something that many domestic B2B businesses are embracing because of the vast opportunity.

5. Taking huge leverage of social media: It has been found in many developed and developing countries that consumers buy from social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Pinterest, and many more. Business owners say that selling across social media platforms keeps the consumers hooked on their brand. The growing trend of buying on social media is causing brands to rush onto these platforms to grow their businesses.

6. Usage of Augmented reality to Showcase product: Due to the pandemic, many buyers rushed onto eCommerce. Companies used Augmented reality to gain a huge advantage to attract customers by displaying products in new ways. By following this trend, many eCommerce stores have been able to double their conversion rates and also increase loyalty of business clients.

7. Real-time pricing: This is the ability of the businesses to manage and adjust the prices which could be needed due to dynamic situations. This trend has given B2B eCommerce businesses to manage the prices in real-time and also to keep up with competitor’s prices. It is the most preferred method that businesses are following because it results in challenging competition, provides personalised prices to consumers, and makes customers loyal.

8. Ease in finding product:  Many B2B buyers complain that it takes an immense amount of time to find the perfect product, and also, the information is not very clearly mentioned if they choose any product. For this reason, eCommerce software development companies have started using product information systems (PIM). They are now able to reduce the pain of their customers by providing them with better management of the product, better classification, and better distribution across channels.

9. Educating the customer through content: B2B enterprises have realised that if they want to bring in new clients, they must embrace Search Engine Optimization. As a result, more B2B companies are providing extensive instructional materials about their product lines to demonstrate that they are experts in their sector. Many companies accomplish this by developing content that uses images and videos to describe who their products are for and how to use them.

Remember that eCommerce is a continuously evolving marketplace so to keep up with that, eCommerce software development is also evolving with it. B2b eCommerce software solutions have constantly been optimised to deliver a handcrafted and delighting experience to the B2B clients. These emerging trends can facilitate sustained growth and scalability in the long run for your business. Due to the never-ending growth of the industry, it’s important to always be toe to toe with these trends. We hope that you can incorporate these trends into your business and observe the J-curve growth.