• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 13, 2024

B2B ecommerce firms are gearing up for the coming year, despite striking challenges, judging by the 2024 State Of B2B Ecommerce Report, a study by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Zoovu.  

The priorities, whether important or critical, are as follows:

• Provide more automated and personalized guidance to online buyers — 80%
• Improve demand generation — 75% 
• Improve ability to collect and use zero-party data — 73% 
• Drive more of our overall sales to online e-commerce channels — 71%
• Make products more easily discoverable (e.g., improve product search results, improve product recommendations) — 70%
• Improve product data hygiene (e.g., clean, standardize, make product more accessible) — 69%
• Improve omnichannel buyer engagement — 67%
• Automate merchandising (e.g., automate personalized landing pages for different buyer-specific themes) — 62%
• Increase mobile functionality for searching and ordering — 61%
• Make more products available for online purchase (i.e., increase number of SKUs available through e-commerce platform) — 58% 

But B2B brands face several challenges pertaining to data use: 

• Siloed data — 47% 
• Insufficient technology — 43% 
• Lack of internal skills or knowledge — 40% 
• Costs (e.g., lack of budget, ROI too low) — 40% 

Moreover, companies are also prevented from offering more products through their ecommerce platform due to:

• Poor data — 66% 
• Insufficient platform — 41%
• Ineffective data management — 89%
• Product complexity — 50%
• Buyer engagement — 55% 

Perhaps worse, U.S. and European brands cite these top ecommerce challenges:

• Ecommerce is broken at my company — 65% 
• Need to digitally transform the selling experience — 74%
• Platform can’t handle complexity of products/data — 81% 
• Unable to make full product portfolio available online — 96%
• Lack complete/accurate data — 83%
• Lack automation in data management — 80%
• Online sales still require human interactions — 83%
• Struggle with ability to collect zero-party data — 67%
• Use AI to personalize recommendations — 30%

On the positive side, the respondents expect these benefits from an AI-driven, automated product data and discovery solution, either large or transformational:

• Improved customer experience — 79% 
• Reduced cost of sales and services (e.g., reduced sales force) — 74% 
• Increased revenue — 71%
• Improved customer insights — 69% 
• Increased credibility and trust — 65% 
• Faster sales process (i.e., shorter time to close) — 64% 
• Increased customer retention — 59% 
• Increased market share — 54% 
• Increased conversion rate — 51%

Forrester surveyed 413 B2B decision makers in companies in North America, the UK, France, Spain, the Nordic countries, Austria, Spain and Switzerland from May 2023 to  January 2024.