B2B buyers aren’t just a one-trick pony when it comes to making digital purchases for their organization.
Ongoing research from Digital Commerce 360 supplemented by additional industry research from McKinsey and Co. shows that all the multiple channels buyers use to purchase goods and services from sellers now either begin and end entirely online or include at least one digital touchpoint.
Today, B2B buyers use about a dozen digitally focused sales channels to engage with sellers. That’s up from 7.5 channels five years ago and just five channels eight years ago, McKinsey says.
B2B buyers are using more digital sales channels than ever
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, buyers did business through channels that included email, trips to the store, branch, or distribution center, by phone, and online at a seller’s ecommerce site or log-in portal.
Now, buyers may use as many as 11 channels to transact business with a B2B seller. And more of these transactions begin and end online.
Today, 53% of companies that took part in a 2023 B2B buyers survey from Digital Commerce 360 and Forrester make an online purchase daily or multiple times over a business day.
Getting a better online user experience from sellers that makes their jobs easier and more efficient to perform is a top-of-mind topic among today’s buyers. And so far, buyers are content with the digital customer experience sellers are dishing up.
The 2023 survey of 150 buyers by Digital Commerce 360 and Forrester finds that 36% of buyers graded their experience as an A. That response came when they were asked: Thinking about your last few purchases you made online for business, how would you grade the overall experiences when researching and buying from these B2B sites? That compares with 49% that graded their experience a B, 14% a C, and 1% a D.
For many buyers, a better user experience means the seller’s ecommerce site has the products, pricing, and related product selections they need to make an informed purchasing decision. It can also mean having the ecommerce and order management tools to make placing the order fast, easy, and convenient, the B2B buyer data shows.
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