Independent Research Finds Midmarket, B2B Sellers Prefer a Unified Approach for their Ecommerce Solution to Enable Omnichannel Success

The study, "Tomorrow's Midmarket B2B eCommerce Will Take Place in the Cloud," is the first of its kind to examine how midmarket, B2B sellers are responding to shifting customer preferences to engage and transact online. The study also found that most of these companies still use legacy, standalone ecommerce technology, which can limit their market agility and their ability to fulfill omnichannel customer expectations in the ever-changing world of the B2B buyer.

The study found that many midmarket, B2B sellers say their ecommerce  solutions have contributed to their growth in sales, new customer acquisitions and improved customer relationships. Businesses that adopted a single, unified solution to run their ecommerce and back-office systems reported experiencing even greater benefits. They were 19 percent more likely to say their ecommerce solution improved cross-sell and upsell revenue, and 14 percent more likely to credit their ecommerce solution with improving their overall profitability per customer. The B2B companies that adopted cloud-based, unified solutions did so to implement more quickly, reduce costs relative to on-premise systems, gain the agility to better respond to fast-changing market conditions, and scale more efficiently to help grow their business.

According to Forrester, businesses continue to respond to the shifting, B2B customer preferences of engaging and transacting online. Most B2B buyers prefer the online, do-it-yourself option of researching products and services, and find it more convenient to buy online versus from a sales representative. Therefore, many of the study's respondents reported that they continue to experience higher online sales with less overhead, motivating them to make ecommerce a major investment priority and migrate more customers to their ecommerce website.

"Business sellers realize legacy, standalone ecommerce systems are unlikely to meet the evolving needs of their customers who want seamless, omnichannel buying experiences to engage and transact," NetSuite's General Manager of Commerce Products, Andy Lloyd said. "A cloud-based, unified solution can provide that experience, while streamlining business operations to grow profitably."

Additional key findings from the study include:

B2B online sales continue to rise. About 72 percent of midmarket, B2B sellers derive at least 25 percent of their revenue from online channels.

Ecommerce leads technology priorities. Approximately 59 percent of companies surveyed have made ecommerce technology an investment priority for 2016.

Business sellers respond to customer demand. More than half of sellers reported focusing on ecommerce because their customers expect a high quality online shopping experience.

Unified approach drives higher satisfaction. Sellers that deployed a unified platform reported higher satisfaction levels by enabling customer self-service, acquired new customers, and eased the burdens of tracking orders and managing fulfillment.

Cloud on par with on-premise. Nearly half (48 percent), of midmarket, B2B companies were running on or transitioning to a cloud-based ecommerce solution.

B2B ecommerce market expanding. Forrester estimates that US B2B ecommerce will grow from $780 billion in 2015 to $1.13 trillion by 2020. Forty-two percent of sellers in the study expect at least half of their customers to be buying from them online within the next three years.

Forrester Consulting conducted the NetSuite-commissioned research in January 2016 by administering an international online survey to 352 midmarket, B2B ecommerce decision makers, supplemented with three in-depth interviews.

To acquire a free copy of this study, visit netsuite.com/B2Bmidmarket

Today, more than 30,000 companies and subsidiaries depend on NetSuite to run complex, mission-critical business processes globally in the cloud. Since its inception in 1998, NetSuite has established itself as the leading provider of cloud-based financials, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and omnichannel commerce software applications for businesses of all sizes. Many FORTUNE 100 companies rely on NetSuite to accelerate innovation and business transformation. NetSuite continues its success in delivering the best cloud business management software to businesses around the world, enabling them to lower IT costs significantly while increasing productivity as the global adoption of the cloud accelerates.

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SOURCE NetSuite Inc.

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