Brazilian distributor Gaveteiro.com.br continues to open new markets as it expands. The industrial supplies distributor started with office supplies in 2012 then added industrial cleaning supplies and safety equipment in 2013. More expansion followed.

The company now also offers food service and restaurant equipment, fork lifts and welding equipment, among many other products in 12 categories and as a result last year needed to update its website. The new e-commerce technology platform was developed in-house, co-founder Benedikt Voller says. And the upgrade is helping to grow sales, he says.

Voller declines to reveal complete figures on web sales. But he says total 2016 sales will be at least the equivalent of $10 million. About 10% of Gaveteiro’s 2015 sales were online, although Voller notes it can be difficult to tell where a sale began or finished among web, phone and email channels. Nonetheless, he expects the web to account for 40% of all sales by the end of this year, including sales initiated on direct channels.

Gaveteiro is riding Brazilians’ gradual acceptance of shopping online for consumer goods, which helps train business buyers of supplies and equipment, Voller says. B2B companies generally face a two-fold challenge in Brazil, where online retail purchasing lags the U.S. “In general, B2C e-commerce is behind the U.S. and B2B is lagging behind B2C,” Voller says. He estimates Brazil is seven to 10 years behind B2B e-commerce in the U.S.

Brazil’s economy has suffered in the past few years, and high unemployment rates and high inflation are slowing the growth in online sales, e-commerce experts say. The Brazilian economy shrank 3.8% in 2015—the biggest decline in gross domestic product since 1991, according to Banco Central do Brasil, Brazil’s central bank.

Macroeconomic woes haven’t stopped consumers in the country from shopping online, however. While overall retail sales in the nation fell 4.0% in 2015, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, e-commerce sales increased 15.3%, Brazilian internet consulting and research firm e-Bit estimates. And the 295 Brazilian merchants ranked in the Internet Retailer’s 2016 Latin America 500 grew online sales 15.5% in 2015 to $12.94 billion from $11.20 billion.

Web-only distributor Gaveteiro started its business in office supplies because Brazil offered a large potential market in that category. At the time most companies that had websites were rudimentary and had limited product lines or didn’t sell products at all, Voller says. “In the last 10 years office suppliers moved forward a little and functionality improved” on their websites, he adds.

And like in the U.S., retail websites are setting the standard for B2B websites in terms of appearance and functions, Voller says. A larger challenge is persuading business buyers how they can benefit from working with an online B2B company. Gaveteiro must show the value of such tools as automated order tracking. “It’s not only about sales online it’s about interaction online,” he says. “We say ‘download your invoices—if you don’t it takes time from someone else.’”

B2B commerce is much more fragmented in Brazil than in the U.S., Voller notes. In the U.S. there are many maintenance, repair and operations products companies; in Brazil, not so much. The marketplace is fragmented because companies focus on specific products or geographic regions. And some are entrenched family-owned operations. “They are legacy companies that don’t want to move ahead,” he says. “They have had success selling by phone and so why change?”

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