About 30,000 businesses on the marketplace use Alibaba’s AI tools to increase product exposure in targeted markets. Sellers on the marketplace say the practice helps them grow, even with limited internal staff.

Now Alibaba is rolling out its latest tool: an AI-powered conversational sourcing engine.

Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both operate in China.

How Alibaba’s new AI tool for B2B works

Unlike traditional search engines, which rely heavily on simple ranking and indexing, Alibaba’s AI sourcing engine will focus on understanding natural language and transforming it into professional sourcing requests.

It can even predict sourcing needs and provide suggestions. Another feature also allows complex queries or full documents as inputs. The system will distinguish and respond to them in natural language, according to Alibaba.

“Traditional search engines evaluate web page importance through interlinking, credibility and ad spend,” said Alibaba.com president Kuo Zhang. “In this AI era, the B2B sourcing engine offers an intuitive and organic way to query, as well as rapidly and accurately match business buyers and business sellers based on their proven track record.”

The sourcing engine’s features

Alibaba’s sourcing engine includes two significant features:

1. Reconstruction of information.
2. A digital assistant.

First, in reconstructing information, Alibaba looked at how ecommerce has traditionally used product listings with titles, descriptions, keywords and pictures. Business buyers often need to compare multiple suppliers. With that in mind, the sourcing engine will reorganize such information to enable direct, custom-made and side-by-side comparisons, Alibaba said.

Next, the digital assistant will leverage 25 years of expertise in digitalizing various trade aspects — products, payments, logistics, customs and currency exchanges. Alibaba believes its AI technology in this context can now mimic the experience of having a sourcing professional at a buyer’s side.

“This technology can level the playing field and significantly reduce costs, enabling small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to become integral players in the global supply chain,” Alibaba said.

Alibaba’s larger push for B2B AI tools

In November, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group introduced its generative artificial intelligence (AI) toolkit, branded “Aidge,” which has been adopted by approximately 500,000 merchants, with daily API usage reaching 50 million calls.

Features include a virtual try-on tool for apparel and a 24/7 AI customer service capability.

Since last April, Alibaba International has assembled an AI business team of 100 analysts and developers.

In May, the marketplace company surveyed 500 micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) companies that do business on Alibaba.com and range in size from one to 250 employees.

Among the survey’s findings:

• 25% to 35% of respondents use AI daily.
• Using AI tools led to an average 37% increase in product exposure to promote growth in commerce.
• Companies using AI tools accepted 70% of product optimization suggestions.

The survey also found that companies from developing countries accounted for much of the use of the marketplace’s AI tools.

“Among the top 20 countries making the most frequent use of Alibaba.com’s AI tools, approximately 50% are from developing countries,” Alibaba assessed.

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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.

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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Trent Guyler, vice president, digital and marketing, The Grasshopper Co.

But in recent years, the company has realized a pick-up in parts sales following the usual end of its peak season in July, says Trent Guyer, vice president, digital and marketing.

One reason, he says, is the mid-July Amazon Prime Day promotional event. Although designed primarily as a big promotional day for retailers and retail consumers, Prime Day also helps to generate spikes in traffic and sales on the Amazon storefronts and product listings of B2B sellers. Amazon scheduled its 10th annual Prime Day this year for July 16 and 17.

Grasshopper is a manufacturer of high-end grass-cutting equipment used to maintain such properties as corporate campuses and the White House lawn. It sells grass-cutting equipment priced at up to $20,000 or more per mowing unit. It also has a network of about 1,000 North American dealers and has customers in about 42 countries. On GrasshopperMower.com, it displays equipment and parts images and details, a request-a-quote feature and a dealer locator. It sells parts through the Amazon.com marketplace and Amazon Business.

Trent notes that Grasshopper customers don’t typically plan their purchasing around promotional events, because if they need a part, they want it immediately.

Manufacturers benefit from Amazon Prime Day

A Grasshopper mower.

Still, he notes that the extra Prime Day traffic has helped Grasshopper experience some of its strongest July sales days for equipment parts.

“The July Prime Day in 2022 actually helped us to have a best day of that month,” Trent says, adding, “Our sales on Day One of Prime Day 2023 uplift us to have one of our three best days in July of that year.”

Trent says Grasshopper runs ads throughout the year to promote its parts sales on Amazon, but nothing specific to Prime Day events. He adds that the reliable rise in traffic is enough to generate increased customer activity through a “halo effect of just being on the platform on Prime Day.”

Dynabrade takes a similar approach regarding Prime Day promotional activity. It relies on an expected boost in traffic rather than specific promotions. Dynabrade is a pneumatic power tools manufacturer.

B2B sellers capitalize on Amazon Business and B2C sales

Ronald Veiders, global brand manager, says the manufacturer tried running a limited Prime Day promotion a couple years ago for one of its popular SKUs and realized only a minor direct benefit. In addition to referring customers on Dynabrade.com to its distribution partners, the manufacturer sells some of its products through a Dynabrade Amazon storefront. Like Grasshopper, Dynabrade has received advice on Amazon marketplace strategy from Enceiba, a digital marketing agency.

Ronald Veiders, global brand manager, Dynabrade

The Prime Day promotion “wasn’t worth it to us,” he says. “We just like being on Amazon, because we know there’s more eyes. And I guarantee we’ll get at least a couple more sales out of it.”

Veiders agrees that Dynabrade benefits at least somewhat from a Prime Day halo effect. But he figures that the boost in activity sparked by Dynabrade’s Amazon presence is tied in large part to the trend of today’s B2B buyers to search online for Dynabrade products and to seek out deals like Amazon’s Prime two-day delivery service.

“Think about the procurement buyers out there nowadays,” he says. “Their first step is Googling, and Amazon is going to come up first or close to it if they’re looking for one of our products. And they’re going to go there to shop, price and compare. And because we’re FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), it’s Prime and ready to go … for two-day delivery anywhere in the country.”

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

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The post How two manufacturers get a B2B sales boost from Amazon Prime Day appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

But many sellers do get a moderate to monumental boost in sales from Amazon Prime Day. The two-day online sales event will generate as much as $14 billion in total U.S. sales, according to Adobe Analytics.

“Prime Day can be important to B2B sellers that are correctly leveraging Amazon Business,” says Brian Beck, managing partner of Enceiba, a firm that helps companies sell through Amazon. “If sellers properly leverage Amazon’s B2B selling tools, they can see rather considerable boosts in sales during this period.”

Amazon Business doesn’t break out specific Prime Day sales. However, the Amazon B2B marketplace is hitting social media and elsewhere with plenty of promotions and deals.

Amazon ranks No. 1 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s largest online retailers. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database, which ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value.

Global Online Marketplaces Database

Leading 100 global online marketplaces. Access up to 5 years of third-party (3P) and total GMV, company information, AOVs, conversion rates, # of sellers, and SKUs. Web sales range from $19.8 million to over $ 723.8 billion annually.

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How does Prime Day affect Amazon Business?

A new promotion entices small business owners, qualifying users with a personal Amazon Prime account for Amazon Business Prime Duo. Once they register and verify for a free Amazon Business account, a small business owner can then use their Prime membership for both B2B and B2C online purchases.

“Whether you’re buying for an office of 100 or stocking up for your journey as a small business owner, you won’t want to miss out on a chance to practice smart business buying this Prime Day,” Amazon Business said.

Other Amazon Business promotions for the Prime Day event cater to larger organizations. They may qualify for 30-day to 90-day free-trial memberships. And U.S. members can earn rewards when they purchase specific brands or complete qualifying actions in their account.

“This Prime Day, customers can shop for Amazon private brands products and earn 2% back,” Amazon Business said. “Stack these savings on top of one another, combining 2% back plus returns from completed actions, which can lead to 4%, 6%, or even more.”

First-party and third-party Amazon Business sales during Prime Day

How many sales first-party and third-party Amazon Business sellers can generate from Prime Day varies widely, say ecommerce analysts.

But done correctly, some Amazon sellers generate sales volume during the Prime Day event that is 30% to 75% higher than marketplace sales on an average business day.

“We see a ‘halo effect’ from the B2C side that impacts B2B sellers when they effectively participate in Prime Days,” Beck says. “Remember that B2B buyers on Amazon are also B2C consumers, and Amazon Business is doubling down in 2024 with additional capabilities specifically for B2B buyers. This includes an effort to make it easier for Amazon customers to sign up for business accounts by adding a B2B capability to their personal Prime accounts (called Amazon Duo).

Buy-Rite Beauty is a supplier of furniture and equipment to beauty salons, barber shops and other related businesses. It sells through BuyRiteBeauty.com, Amazon and its physical showrooms. On some Prime Days, sales are lucrative and generate far more transactions than on a typical day, says chief marketing officer Jeff McRitchie.

“Prime Day may not be quite as big for B2B as it is for B2C, but in past years, we have still seen sales spike more than 400% during Prime Day,” McRitchie says. “There are far more buyers in the market, and they are often looking for and expecting deals. Adding additional deals to your items such as coupons or adding a sale price to some of your items can make a huge difference, especially if you can take advantage of the badging opportunities that Amazon provides.”

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A Houthi spokesperson stated in December that they would target “ships affiliated to Israel or transporting commodities to Israeli ports” and continue to do so if “food and medicine keep not accessing the Gaza Strip.”

The online freight-booking and payments platform said it facilitated a 32% year-over-year increase in the number of transactions to 316,500, exceeding management’s Q2 expectations.

Freightos transaction volume in Q2

Freightos said in a statement that it had expected transaction volume to grow between 27% and 29% to a range of 303,000 and 309,000 transactions. It also said the Q2 growth rate of 32% outpaced its long-term targeted growth rate range of 20-30%.

“This significant transaction growth highlights the growing adoption of digital solutions in the freight industry,” Freightos said.

Freightos added that steady freight prices resulted in corresponding increases in its Q2 gross booking value. It also exceeded expectations by growing 31% to $203.4 million. Freightos had expected Q2 booking value would rise only 15%-18% to a range of $178 million to $182 million.

Freightos lets importers and exporters compare freight shipping rates, book shipments and pay for services through Freightos.com. It also provides software for air and ocean carriers and freight forwarders for managing quoting, pricing, bookings and other operations.

An expanding base of buyers and carriers

Despite its prior slower-growth expectations, Freightos prepared in Q2 for more long-term growth by expanding its air and ocean carrier network by 38% to 51 from 37 carriers. In addition, its number of unique “buyer users” in Q2 increased 16% to approximately 19,000.

Freightos notes that its buyer organizations range from small and midsized businesses to large multinational organizations. Its number of buyer users includes all the individuals placing bookings on its platform. A spokesman adds that Freightos has an average of more than 5,000 bookings per workday.

“This growth underscores the ongoing marketplace network effects, where buyers attract sellers and sellers attract buyers,” Freightos said.

Handling spot freight market growth

Freightos also attributed its growth to its ability to serve the spot freight market, or freight shipments handled outside of long-term contracts.

“This momentum represents the continued digitalization of the spot freight market, estimated to comprise 30%-50% of the total air and ocean freight market,” the marketplace company said.

As part of its carrier network expansion, Freightos in June announced agreements with Thai Airlines and Coyne Airways, carriers on Freightos.com that will use the WebCargo by Freightos digital booking and payment platform to manage freight services across areas including Asia, Africa, and the Persian Gulf and Caspian regions.

Barcelona, Spain-based Freightos said it will host a conference call to discuss its Q2 financial results and Q3 outlook on Aug. 19.

Here’s last quarter’s update on Freightos.

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

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The marketplace has raised funding of $1.7 billion since the company was founded seven years ago. It currently has a market valuation of more than $10 billion, according to Crunchbase.com.

Now, the company is putting some of that cash to work expanding its leadership ranks.

Faire executive team and leadership changes

On July 1, Faire promoted Lauren Cooks Levitan to president from chief financial officer and charged her with leading several corporate functions and driving new business development.

As her replacement, Faire named Jason Lee, already vice president of finance, as chief financial officer. Lee joined Faire 18 months ago after spending over a decade leading finance for Square and investor relations for the company in its current incarnation as Block, Inc.

Block is a financial technology company serving 56 million users and 4 million businesses. It processes payments worth $228 billion annually, the company says.

Recent Faire hires

Faire’s other new employees include:

• Dan Hockenmaier as chief strategy officer. He previously worked as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group and director of growth at Thumbtack.
• Thuan Pham as chief technology officer. He previously served as chief technology for Uber and related roles.

As a marketplace operator, Faire has 100,000 brands and more than 700,000 retailers in the United States, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia. Faire also has locations in San Francisco, Waterloo, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, London, Amsterdam and São Paulo.

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Shelley Salomon, worldwide vice president, Amazon Business

“Amazon Business wants to change how companies shop for supplies through our unmatched selection, deep discounts, and smart capabilities,” says Shelley Salomon, worldwide vice president of Amazon Business.

The new toolset includes:

• Amazon Business App Center, a global “one-stop shop” where companies can connect their Amazon Business account with more than 25 third-party applications for such purposes as integrated shopping, financial accounting management, inventory management, business analytics, and loyalty program management.
• Guided Buying for managing employee spending and steering buyers to an organization’s preferred purchasing. For example, a toolbar lets account administrators highlight preferred products with sustainability certifications.
• Integrated Quoting is designed to help businesses generate custom quotes for bulk orders placed through Amazon Business as well as other suppliers via third-party e-sourcing and e-procurement platforms. Amazon says the Integrated Quoting feature is “ideal for business customers purchasing more than 1,000 items or more than $10,000 in total value.”
• Budget Management helps companies manage how they set and review time-bound budgets across their organization, Amazon says. “Business customers can set spend thresholds and make budget amounts visible to buyers to get ahead of overspending,” Amazon says.
• Cross-domain Identity Management is a new feature that Amazon says saves companies time maintaining their Amazon Business accounts by automatically syncing users’ and group data from their organization’s identity provider.

The new Guided Buying tool available through Amazon Business.

Amazon Business says it “drives roughly $35 billion in annualized gross sales and has more than 6 million customers worldwide, including 96 of the Fortune 100.”

Greg Long, purchasing manager at Seminole County Public Schools in Sanford, Florida, says in an Amazon Business press release: “One of our favorite Amazon Business features is Budget Management. It gives teachers visibility into our budget, so they know how much they have to spend, making it easier to stay within our annual budget.”

Amazon Business adds that it is focused on companies of all sizes.

“Amazon Business wants to transform how companies — whether a local hair salon, global corporation, school, non-profit, hospital, or government agency — shop for supplies through an unmatched selection, deep discounts, and smart capabilities,” a spokesperson says. “Using innovative technology, Amazon Business saves organizations time and money so they can focus their resources on what matters.”

Salomon adds, “We don’t just react to the biggest challenges our customers have shared with us; we get ahead of them with new technologies so our customers can use their resources to navigate the unexpected and continue expanding their business.”

Salomon, an Amazon veteran of more than 20 years, was appointed worldwide vice president of Amazon Business in March after Alexandre Gagnon left that position for a leave of absence. Amazon did not comment on the future plans of Gagnon, who still lists his Amazon Business position on his LinkedIn page.

Salomon’s most recent position at Amazon was vice president of sales, marketing and business development, Amazon Devices. Her other Amazon positions have included vice president of global logistics and delivery technology, and president of Endless.com. She joined Amazon in December 2023 as a senior finance manager following a finance manager position at Intel, according to her LinkedIn profile.

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

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GrubMarket acquired Butter on May 23 for an undisclosed price to serve GrubMarket’s growing appetite for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The marketplace hopes AI solutions will be able to facilitate faster ecommerce and digital payment processing for small restaurants and neighborhood grocers.

San Francisco-based Butter is a four-year-old company. Its software product suite for food distribution companies includes:

• AI-powered sales tools
• Cloud-based enterprise resource planning
• Integrated online payment solutions

To date, Butter has raised more than $39 million in funding with a business base that includes more than 11,000 buyers. It also processes hundreds of thousands of orders annually, the company says.

Next steps in GrubMarket AI growth

Now, GrubMarket is rolling out its latest AI initiative: AI Orders, an AI-powered, automated order processing for food wholesalers and distributors who receive orders from their customers.

Many food wholesalers and distributors struggle with the manual, inefficient, and time-consuming process of taking customer orders, GrubMarket says.

And these businesses process a high volume of orders that arrive via traditional channels like phone, text message, and email. Each has complex line items expressed in vague and non-standardized language.

“The process of converting these artifacts into orders in the distributor’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is invariably error-prone, labor-intensive, and tedious, often leading to costly errors and fulfillment delays, negatively impacting both customer satisfaction and revenue generation potential,” GrubMarket says.

AI Orders addresses these challenges by using AI to convert emails, text messages, and voicemails into integrated digital orders, enhancing operational efficiency and streamlining how food businesses manage their order flow.

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He shared the projections in an interview with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong published June 6. Growth in the B2B marketplace has “slowed after a sevenfold increase in GMV over the previous five years,” he also stated.

“It’s quite hard to double GMV every single year due to an increasingly large base,” he said. “The core issue is about the business model, as we need to make breakthroughs and transformations.”

At the same time, Alibaba is projecting an increase in GMV. In addition, Alibaba continues to roll out new marketplace features.

The latest digital tool for the marketplace is Alibaba Guaranteed, whereby buyers will be able to procure products at fixed prices with shipping fees included and shipped within 72 hours of order placement.

Additional Alibaba features include:

• Buyers can quickly get money back for order-related issues and make free local returns for defects.
• Orders procured through Alibaba Guaranteed will be fulfilled by Alibaba.com, meaning the Alibaba platform manages finance, such as escrow and payment terms and after-sales services.

“Alibaba Guaranteed marks an exciting new chapter for SMEs and global sourcing as it will help to redefine the fulfillment standard of B2B cross-border trade,” Zhang said. “Global sourcing can be a complex process with many moving parts, but Alibaba Guaranteed can help SMEs navigate it with greater ease.”

Alibaba.com says it now serves more than 48 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as buyers, with more than 200,000 suppliers on its platform worldwide.

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