Distributors are making every effort in ecommerce to meet digital B2B buyer expectations
After a yearlong stretch of supply chain and market disruption, distributors are sharpening their digital commerce growth strategies, adapting to new ecommerce demands in the manufacturing and distributing world. In doing so, they’re working to provide more value and a better customer experience choosy and careful buyers.
Barry Litwin, CEO of Global Industrial Co, which does more than half of its more $1 billion in annual sales transactions through digital commerce says that customers have access to plenty of inventory, whereas a couple of years ago they did not, and it seems they’re now focusing on price probably more than they ever have.
Buyers’ demand for value pricing coincides with their expectation of a helpful online and omnichannel purchasing experience.
He adds that companies need to be focused on price management, price intelligence, they’ve got to make sure that their online pricing is competitive in the market, their website is easy to buy from.
Global Industrial finished off last year with a 22.9% year-over-year surge in fourth-quarter sales. That total reached $320.1 million. That was driven by “ecommerce and broader digital sales,” chief financial officer Tex Clark said on an earnings call. The milestone brought full-year 2023 total sales up 9.3% to $1.27 billion.
Litwin said in an interview that ecommerce continues to increase as a percentage of total sales transactions. So the company is going to continue to leverage growth in our ecommerce platform, invest pretty significantly in the site navigation and online product experience.
That means “looking at all the website data, where conversions are occurring, where customers are entering and landing on your site, and making sure we’ve got good controls in place to be able to make adjustments to optimize the customer experience,” he explained.
In addition, the distributor is expanding its product lines, including new products available online.
Other distributors of all sizes across various industries are also expanding their ecommerce and overall digital operations.