Global B2B E-Commerce Market and Trends 2021 Post COVID-19

Global B2B E-Commerce Market and Trends 2021 Post COVID-19

B2B E-Commerce gained momentum during the pandemic: new yStats.com report

The latest publication from Hamburg-based desk market research company yStats.com, “Global B2B E-Commerce Market and Trends 2021 Post COVID-19” provides an insightful overview of the business-to-business E-Commerce industry amid the health crisis, including the recent developments in sales channels, B2B payments, and market players activities. The publication discloses that despite the B2B market being more resistant to changes than the B2C, COVID-19 accelerated the move to digitalization among the market players.

Global B2B market shifts towards digital sales amid COVID-19

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the B2B industry was exogenously prompted to adopt digital channels, resulting in an increase of B2B E-Commerce sales in 2020, as compared to 2019. Furthermore, despite the still persistent movement restrictions and border closures in 2021, B2B cross-border payments were forecasted to increase by 14% year-on-year in 2021. Moreover, by 2023, moving to E-Commerce appeared to be the top investment priority for the majority of B2B organizations. Nevertheless, the transition to digital sales is a long and complicated process, especially for the B2B industry. As such, inverting in omnichannel was seen as an important move by 2023 for over eight in ten B2B leaders across the globe, according to a recent survey cited in the yStats.com report.

B2B buyers expect more virtual sales, personalized content and alternative payment methods

Despite this upward trend, shifting towards online comes with certain challenges for the B2B industry. With that, “Personalizing the customer experience” was stated as the top obstacle for these enterprises. Nevertheless, this was also something that eight in ten of the companies planned to deliver to their clients in 2021. Furthermore, with the onset of the pandemic, B2B firms reduced human interaction in the whole sales chain, and this seem to be exactly what their customers wanted: around 70% of B2B buyers preferred remote interactions or even digital self-services both in 2020 and 2021. Among other trends, virtual cards and instant payments are on a rise for B2B payments; niche marketplaces are gaining popularity and challenging the established players such as Amazon Business and Alibaba; and virtual sales interactions together with online self-services are being considered by B2B market players to expand their market chares, as detailed in the new yStats.com market report.