Latest B2B Ecommerce news, research and case studies

Distributor Global Industrial delivers mediocre Q2 results

Mark Brohan — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 18:13:33 +0000

Through the mid-point of 2024, it’s been a so-so year financially for Global Industrial Inc. and its sales.

For its fiscal second quarter ended June 30, Global Industrial posted revenue of $347.8 million. That compares to $325.8 million the prior year, a 6.8% gain. Global Industrial does about 60% of all its sales digitally.

But the growth in sales came primarily from the company’s acquisition of Indoff, which Global Industrial acquired for $72.6 million in cash in May. Indoff is a B2B direct marketer of material handling products, commercial interior products and business products with operations in North America.

Without Indoff, Global Industrial sales increased 1.8% in Q2 and 1.7% on an average daily sales basis. Net income for the second quarter was $20.3 million compared with $21.5 million in the second quarter of 2023.

Global Industrial sales in Q2

For the first six months of the year, Global Industrial sales increased 11.9%. That’s up to $671.2 million and compares to $599.6 million for the previous year. Excluding Indoff, sales increased 3%.

Global Industrial’s “retention trends remain healthy,” interim CEO Richard Leeds told analysts on the earnings call.

“During the quarter, we saw a continuation of cautious customer purchasing behavior with mixed revenue performance on a monthly basis,” Leeds said.

However, for the year, company growth predictions remain uncertain given current economic conditions, he told analysts.

“It’s been a challenging environment the first 6 months of the year, and our focus remains on the things within our control,” he said. “We continue to make investments that will strengthen our competitive position, help us capture market share and drive long-term revenue performance.”

Check back for more earnings reports. For reference, here’s last quarter’s update on Global Industrial sales.

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B2B distributor ecommerce sales are inconsistent so far in 2024

Mark Brohan — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 19:26:29 +0000

B2B distributor sales are struggling to grow so far this year.

In May, the sales of merchant wholesalers — except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices — totaled $666.7 billion. That’s up 0.4% from $654.3 billion in May 2023. And seasonally adjusted U.S. wholesale sales rose 0.7% in the first five months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, after declining 1.6% for 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But for B2B distributors and ecommerce sales, the story thus far this year is a tale of uneven growth. While it may be a fat city in one vertical, times are leaner in others.

Through the first five months of the year, monthly sales of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices, totaled $3.223 trillion. That compares with $3.299 trillion in January through May 2023, according to the Department of Commerce.

Government data for the monthly sales from distributors and wholesalers trails the calendar by two months, meaning the U.S. Department of Commerce only now just released data for May.

B2B distributor ecommerce sales

Most big public B2B distributors in 2024 are following a common theme of softer sales due to weaker performance in manufacturing productivity and slower overall economic activity.

But some are reporting stronger sales. A case in point is Global Industrial.

Global Industrial Co. started its 2024 fiscal year on a positive note, growing net sales year over year. Global Industrial revenue was $323.4 million for the first quarter ended March 31. That’s an 18.1% increase over $237.8 million in Q1 2023.

Ecommerce sales were particularly strong, the distributor said, even as the industry faced continued economic challenges.

Executives were optimistic about growth potential going forward.

“The industrial distribution market remains highly fragmented, and we have numerous opportunities for growth as we drive sales enablement across our channels, expand current relationships and acquire new customers,” outgoing CEO Berry Litwin told investors.

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How Watsco grows ecommerce sales and an entrepreneurial spirit

Paul Demery — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 14:30:49 +0000

Watsco Inc. owes its market position to a long-running strategy of acquiring family-owned businesses and giving the freedom to continue operating as entrepreneurs — and to a substantial dose of ecommerce technology and sales strategy, founder, chairman and CEO Albert Nahmad said today.

Albert Nahmad, founder, chairman and CEO, Watsco Inc.

The company said quarterly revenue rose 6.8% year over year. That’s up to a record $2.139 billion for the second quarter ended June 30. And ecommerce grew at nearly twice that rate, at 13%, to $770.16 million.

In Q2, Watsco ecommerce sales accounted for 38% of total sales. Watsco is well-known as a prominent online distributor in the highly fragmented, $64 billion North American HVAC and refrigeration products industry.

“A cornerstone of Watsco’s growth strategy is the acquisition of long-standing, family-owned businesses,” Nahmad said on the Q2 earnings call. He noted that, since its founding in 1989, Watsco has completed 69 acquisitions, “achieving industry-leading scale and preserving many wonderful business legacies into future generations.”

Nahmad added, “Over the last five years, Watsco has acquired eight businesses that today generate approximately $1 billion in annual sales.”

Watsco’s entrepreneurial spirit and ecommerce sales focus

The company’s growth strategy relies heavily on continuing the entrepreneurial spirit of acquired companies, whose executives typically remain to lead their operations.

“Simply put, Watsco’s entrepreneurial culture, which empowers local leaders to make local decisions, continues to perform well,” Nahmad said on the earnings call today.

He noted that Watsco’s long-running strategy of investing in digital commerce technology “continues to have an impact” on financial performance.

“Greater adoption and use of our platforms by a growing number of contractors has produced growth and market share gain,” he added.

Watsco is a Miami-based company that other HVAC suppliers have said they emulate for its digital commerce strategy. It also noted other developments related to its “digital ecosystem of technologies” configured to “transform the customer experience and transform how our industry operates.”

Watsco’s digital ecosystem

The digital ecosystem includes:

OnCallAir
Watsco’s HVAC Pro+ Mobile Apps
Watsco’s product information management (PIM) system

OnCallAir is Watsco’s ecommerce sales platform that lets HVAC contractors digitally engage with homeowners and sell them products and services. It compiled approximately $1.4 billion in gross merchandise value for the 12-month period that ended June 30.

For the six months ended June 30, contractors used OnCallAir to present quotes to about 160,000 households. That’s an 18% year-over-year increase. It also generated a 27% increase in GMV to $743 million.

Watsco’s HVAC Pro+ Mobile Apps provide contractors and their customers with real-time access to ecommerce activity. They also include such information as product specifications, inventory availability, systemwide product matchups, and technical support. For the 12 months until June 30, the number of HVAC Pro+ Mobile Apps users grew 12% to approximately 60,000.

Watsco’s product information management (PIM) system is a repository of rich product data. It provides data on over 1.5 million SKUs to more than 375,000 contractors and technicians who visit or connect digitally with one of its nearly 700 physical locations across the United States, Canada and Latin America.

Watsco is updating its technology systems to “optimize the launch of new GWP (Global Warming Potential) A2L” refrigeration systems designed to be more efficient and sustainable to reduce the adverse effect of refrigerants on climate change.

Though it accounted for 38% of total Q2 sales companywide, Watsco ecommerce sales exceeded 60% in some regions.

Watsco’s pitch to would-be partners: ‘Come to Miami to see us’

In his earnings call remarks, Nahmad, forever on the lookout for acquisitions, said, “Our proven culture, customer-focused technologies, scale and access to capital provide unique advantages and opportunities.” He added to anyone listening: “If you have an interest in learning more, please come to Miami and see us. We are transforming an industry, and we would enjoy telling you about it.”

Here’s last quarter’s update on Watsco ecommerce sales.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Tax-hungry states eye ecommerce delivery fees to fund road repair

Mark Brohan — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 19:00:36 +0000

Cash-starved states and other municipal governments are no strangers to taxing ecommerce to generate revenue.

States, for example, have been collecting sales tax on ecommerce purchases by consumers and businesses for years.

Now, a growing number of states, including Colorado, Minnesota and Washington, are looking for options. Solutions include collecting a percentage of the fee consumers and businesses pay to have ecommerce packages delivered to homes or offices to pay for road repair and related projects.

How ecommerce is taxed in Colorado and Minnesota

For example, in 2022, Colorado became the first state to impose a retail delivery fee. That became one component of a 10-year, $5.4 billion transportation funding package. The retail delivery fee is expected to bring in $78 million a year. At that level, the fee represented approximately 15% of new revenues in the package.

All businesses were initially required to collect and remit a 27-cent fee on each retail delivery order by motor vehicle placed to a location in Colorado. Since being implemented, the fee has increased to 28 cents. However, Colorado also has amended the law to exempt businesses with $500,000 or less in annual sales from having to collect the fee.

Currently, two states — Colorado and Minnesota — have passed bills that collect a percentage of ecommerce delivery fees for fixing roads, bridges, and related transportation infrastructure.

Now, Washington is considering similar legislation. Washington has 57,000 miles of city and county streets. They account for 71% of the total miles in the state, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Cities primarily fund their transportation systems on their own. As they do, 69% of transportation expenditures come from local sources, which face pressure due to competing local demands and structural budget deficits.

Meanwhile, the state’s share, which comes from state fuel tax receipts, is in decline. As a result, local governments are searching for new transportation revenue sources, according to a newly published report from the Washington State Joint Transportation Committee.

Why Washington is considering new legislation

A fee in Washington of 30 cents per order could generate between $45 million and $112 million in revenue in 2026, according to the report. The authors estimate that could grow to between $59 million and $160 million by 2030.

The cost to implement is estimated between $200,000 and $540,000 per year over the first several years.

So far, Washington has produced only one report. Meanwhile, no bill thus far has been introduced in the Washington state legislature.

Still, consumer and business ecommerce spending continues to increase. As it does, even more deliveries are being made. And more states including New York, Ohio, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington are exploring taxing delivery fees for road repair revenue.

“While neither Nevada nor Ohio has moved forward with a delivery fee, both states assessed the mechanism’s viability as a revenue mechanism including its revenue stability, efficiency, ease of administration, social equity, user equity, and transparency,” the report says.

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B2B buyers are all-digital all the time and sellers must be too

Mark Brohan — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 15:54:09 +0000

Across the board, B2B buyers are a mobile and an increasingly digital group, according to data and analysis contained in the newly published 2024 B2B Omnichannel Buyer and Seller Report from Digital Commerce 360. Just four years before the global COVID-19 outbreak, B2B buyers made about two-thirds of their organizational goods and services purchases offline. […]

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Procurement plays a more critical role in business operations

Paul Demery — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 21:08:57 +0000

Procurement is growing far beyond its traditional support role in purchasing business materials and supplies.

CPOs who did well are those who went and found new sources of supply or who focused on protecting revenues or margin, rather than focusing exclusively on cost.

Roman Belotserkovskiy, partner

McKinsey & Co.

Klaus Staubitzer, chief procurement officer and head of supply chain, Siemens AG

“Recent events, like the Covid-19 pandemic and focus on sustainability, have given us the opportunity to establish procurement and supply chain as a key value function instead of a simple support function,” Klaus Staubitzer, the chief procurement officer and head of supply chain at technology and engineering giant Siemens AG, says in a new report on procurement industry trends from Economist Impact and business software company SAP SE.

But the report notes that living up to that “key value” provider role isn’t easy and requires more coordination among procurement and other business departments as companies deal with ongoing supply chain threats, such as the armed conflicts in sea lanes that arose after the pandemic.

The report, “Across the procurement-verse: changing trends in the procurement function,” is based on a first-quarter 2024 global survey of 2,307 senior executives across various business operations, including supply chains, financial management and human resources as well as procurement.

The report asserts that while most executives recognize that procurement departments have made notable strides in collaboration with other departments, “procurement teams have considerable room to improve collaboration skills.”

“While 75% of executives agree that procurement collaborates effectively with the business on issues of strategic importance (up from 53% last year), only a fraction of these (18%) have high confidence in procurement doing so, and only 14% have high confidence in the application of procurement insights across the organization,” the report says. “Procurement has yet to gain the full trust of stakeholders in this area.”

The report, citing crucial trends in AI and supply chain diversification, also asserts:

Procurement’s success in digitalization increasingly rests on its ability to adopt and master emerging technologies.

“Accelerating digitalization is the highest procurement priority for the majority of respondent organizations over the next 12-18 months, and AI adoption is a centerpiece of these efforts, cited by 44% as a top technology priority,” the report says. “The respondents make clear AI should play a key role in improving procurement process automation.”

Procurement teams are seeking a balance between centralized and decentralized operating models.

Asked about procurement operating model changes in the next 12-18 months, survey respondents said their intentions were roughly evenly split between two directions: “One is increasing the role of centers of excellence (CoEs), which support best practices in strategic sourcing, knowledge management, performance tracking and other areas. The other is adopting a center-led model, in which the central procurement team makes decisions in key areas while leaving business units to decide on unit-specific procurement matters. CoEs complement and support a center-led approach.”

Businesses look to reduce supply chain risk in the long term by prioritizing supplier diversification — a priority cited by 40% of surveyed executives.

“In the shorter term, meanwhile, companies are putting stronger emphasis on supply-base consolidation (26% in 2024 v. 10% in 2023) given the push to build trusted relationships to overcome supply-chain challenges,” the report says.

Procurement and supply chain teams are also using new technology applications to improve how they ensure getting the right products for their organizations.

Pushing procurement’s more valuable role

For example, the report notes that Siemens uses “a digital twin (a digital model of a real-world product, object or process) to analyze, with precision, the material cost of the parts it purchases and how they are produced.”

The report adds that Staubitzer’s team at Siemens now also uses the tool to determine the CO2 emissions of those parts as well as the carbon footprint of the supplier’s entire operations. The survey uncovered a similar trend, noting that 46% of CPOs “prioritize carbon footprint mitigation, more than any of their counterparts.”

“Our suppliers are sometimes surprised that we have a better breakdown of these details than they have from their own calculations,” Staubitzer says.

Roman Belotserkovskiy, a partner in the Austin, Texas, office of the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., says the inflation trends in recent years have provided an opportunity for procurement teams to demonstrate their value and increase their prominence.

“CPOs who did well are those who went and found new sources of supply or who focused on protecting revenues or margin, rather than focusing exclusively on cost,” he says in the report.

Belotserkovskiy has also observed an increase in the number of CPOs presenting to their board of directors — another sign of increased prominence.

“That was very rare two or three years ago,” he says.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Experience is everything for B2B buyers

Mark Brohan — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:43:53 +0000

B2B buyers are making purchases online more than ever before, according to the 2024 B2B Buyer Report from Sana Commerce, and their experience determines their decision-making.

Two out of three B2B buyers prefer to place their orders online through suppliers’ websites, and 79% prefer to place repeat orders online. B2B ecommerce has even become the norm for complex and high-value orders. 58% of B2B buyers want to conduct these transactions online, Sana Commerce survey data of 1,000 buyers shows.

But even though B2B online buying has entered the mainstream, B2B sellers are facing a big threat: Too many buyers are having a bad experience with B2B web stores. And buyers are willing to jump ship because of it. The Sana Commerce survey revealed that 74% of B2B buyers said they would switch suppliers if another B2B web store offered a better experience. This issue is particularly pronounced for U.S. buyers, where the percentage spikes to 91%.

Key findings about the B2B buyer experience from Sana Commerce:

84% of B2B buyers believe that an easy and accurate online web store experience is important.
79% of B2B buyers prefer to place repeat orders online.
58% of buyers prefer placing complex orders online.
Almost 9 in 10 (87%) B2B buyers believe that a bad buying experience impacts their relationship with the supplier.

“In the last two years, B2B buyers have advanced their adoption of e-commerce in B2B sales to the point that offline sales are now in a fringe minority,” according to the survey.

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A veteran ecommerce executive joins Custom Ink as CEO

Paul Demery — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 20:50:51 +0000

Custom Ink — an online source of apparel and “other swag” that businesses and community organizations can customize with printed designs — has refocused on its digital roots in the years following the pandemic.

Last December, the company launched Swag.Space as a “white-label” platform that lets promotional product distributors develop online product catalogs and manage production, inventory, orders, distribution and storage. Swag.Space runs on technology and infrastructure developed by Swag.com, the custom-product ecommerce platform Custom Ink acquired in 2021. Through its integration with the Shopify ecommerce platform, Swag.Space lets client distributors offer their customers “the ability to launch company stores.”

David Doctorow, recently named CEO of Custom Ink.

Now, the customized swag company wants to take its digital strategy to the next level with a new CEO steeped in ecommerce-growth experience.

The company has named David Doctorow, who most recently was the CEO of real estate company Realtor.com, as the top executive to succeed co-founder and CEO Marc Katz, who will remain as chairman of the board. Doctorow will take over the reins and join the board next month.

Marc Kattz, chairman, Custom Ink

“Leading Custom Ink and working with such great people has been an amazing 25-year experience,” Katz said in a statement announcing Doctorow’s appointment. “We’ve undertaken major changes since the pandemic to refocus on our digital roots, and now it’s time for a new CEO to lead us to new heights. David is a proven leader with an impressive track record building digital businesses.”

At Realtor.com, Doctorow was CEO between 2020 and 2023 and “led the business to record revenue, profit and customer satisfaction,” Custom Ink says in its statement. In addition, it notes that, prior to Realtor, Doctorow led growth in eBay’s customer acquisition and retention efforts as head of global growth and, as chief marketing and strategy officer of online travel services company Expedia, “helped double” sales and profits.

At Custom Ink, Doctorow says he sees “tremendous potential for further growth” as the personalized products company continues to develop its digital offerings.

Custom Ink is supported financially by Great Hill Partners, its primary growth equity backer.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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How B2B startup Inhaven is reworking vacation rentals

Paul Demery — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 20:58:44 +0000

When Ashley Ching and her family of six started vacationing in privately owned rental properties instead of hotel chains, she noticed that vacation rentals often didn’t always measure up to their online marketing images.

“You see the pictures online, you like the location, but oftentimes we show up to terrible beds and missing pots and pans,” she says.

The challenge we have today in the vacation rental industry is 25,000 property management companies doing things in different ways.

Ashley Ching, founder and CEO

Inhaven

Ashley Ching, founder and CEO, Inhaven

Ching, a veteran of product sourcing, merchandising and ecommerce, figured there must be a better way to manage the growing U.S. vacation rental business, which, according to research firm AirDNA, totals approximately 1.5 million rental units in the U.S. market.

In September 2022, she founded and became CEO of Inhaven, an online B2B company she launched to raise the operational standards of the short-term vacation rental industry. Ching brought to Inhaven her experience in product sourcing, merchandising and managing brand standards at Tiffany & Co. and in ecommerce at The Home Depot housewares brand The Company Store.

Inhaven deployed a customized a B2B ecommerce site at Inhaven.com on the BigCommerce platform, which it designed to make it easier for property managers and their buyers in the complex vacation rental industry to find and purchase quality products ranging from beds, linens and pillows to bathroom supplies, kitchen utensils and tableware.

Inhaven also has deployed the Zoho CRM application to manage things such as customer application forms and Klaviyo for email marketing.

One of Inhaven’s primary goals is also to establish product standards among the thousands of vacation rental property management companies, who handle about 40% of the U.S. vacation rental market of 1.5 million units, Ching says.

“The challenge that we have in the vacation rental industry today is that there are 25,000 property management companies … 25,000 companies doing things in different ways.”

She asserts that, just as the hospitality industry set higher bed standards decades ago for economy as well luxury hotels, the vacation rental industry needs to follow suit.

Working with suppliers to furnish “Masterpieces”

Ching says Inhaven works with suppliers to provide products that meet quality standards in four levels, from basic (or “Canvas”) to high-end (or “Masterpiece”). It organizes them with images, pricing and other product details on Inhaven.com to simplify how buyers can choose the ones that fit their market and pricing strategy. Buyers for property managers can see which products meet their companies’ purchasing policies.

Inhaven.com has API connections to suppliers to update product details in real time and forward custom orders to vendors for drop-shipping. It works with about 200 brands, including Gibson Home and Martha Stewart.

Ching says Inhaven also uses the Flxpoint drop-ship platform, which “helps us maintain current inventory and supports our order workflows to and from our manufacturers.” It also uses Aftership to track order fulfillment once a manufacturer ships to a customer.

Inhaven is privately funded and doesn’t release revenue figures. But Ching notes that it has been growing steadily since launching in 2022 and now serves buyers for about 55,000 rental units.

“We’ve been doubling sales every quarter since then,” she says.

Going forward, Ching says she hopes to expand on Inhaven’s product standards strategy by working with online travel agencies and rental listing services to identify vacation properties that meet particular Inhaven standards.

“We’re focused on people looking for vacation homes managed by teams committed to these standards, and making it easy for them to find these homes,” she says, adding, “There’s nothing like that in the vacation rental industry.”

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Keeping B2B ecommerce flowing with post-sale support

Michael Vax — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:14:51 +0000

Michael Vax

Repeat business drives a substantial portion of the revenue in a B2B company. You need to make re-ordering as convenient as possible.

Make sure that customers can filter by date and employee who placed the order.

How do we achieve that in B2B implementation?

Firstly, it’s important to note several differences in the order management implementation of “My Orders” in B2B ecommerce compared to B2C. In B2C, “My Orders” refers specifically to orders placed by the logged-in user. In contrast, in B2B, the list should display orders placed by all users within the same business or, in the case of a large organization, by all users within the same business unit.

Additionally, since the list of orders could be extensive, searching and filtering past orders is the must-have functionality in B2B. Make sure that customers can filter by date and employee who placed the order. Let them search by product name, attributes, text in the description, and category. For large customers, allow search by an SKU number used in the customer’s procurement system.

Make it easy to repeat the entire order or reorder some selected products.

Warn customers about any changes in product availability. If a model has been discontinued, offer alternative products. Nothing is worse than coming to check out just to be informed that a product is out of stock.

Let customers know if a new model of a previously bought product is available and make it easy to replace it.

If the price has changed since the last purchase, make it known as early as possible. Update customers on current promotions, which could be different from the last time the order was placed.

Moreover, make sure configurable products retain product configuration details for make-to-order, so the customer does not need to go through the configuration process again.

One of the key benefits of B2B ecommerce is customer self-service capabilities. Implement the recommendations above to save your customers the most precious resource — their time.

Order Status Updates

Real-time visibility into order status and updates empower customers to track and manage their transactions proactively. By offering order tracking and notification features, businesses enhance transparency and build customer trust throughout the order lifecycle.

Not all order status changes happen in the ecommerce system, but to improve customer experiences, businesses must ensure that ALL notifications are received through the self-service channel. If an order is modified after it has been placed, these changes need to be synced back to the ecommerce system to provide customers with a single source of truth.

Integrating maintenance Requests and Support with an Online Portal

And to help customers after the purchase, create and support a knowledge database, FAQs, and usage and repair instructions.

By offering the ability to place a maintenance request on self-service support portals and ticketing systems, businesses empower customers to report and resolve issues autonomously, reducing reliance on manual intervention.

Conclusion

At the heart of every successful B2B transaction lies a seamless customer experience. It’s not merely about satisfying immediate needs but about fostering long-term relationships built on trust, reliability, and value delivery.

CX is the linchpin of sustainable growth and differentiation in today’s interconnected digital economy.

About the Author:

Michael Vax is the founder of CommerceIsDigital, which provides consulting services and training programs for companies deploying B2B and BTC ecommerce strategies. He is a former executive at ecommerce technology companies Spryker Systems, SAP Commerce Cloud, Elastic Path and WebInterpret.

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