Online shopping has revolutionized retail in the past decades. But the digital sales wave is also taking over the
. Manufacturers supply other manufacturing firms with raw materials, production supplies, finished products, and services. Due to the large variety of traded goods, this sub-branch of B2B e-commerce encompasses both generalist marketplaces and vendors specialized in a specific product sector or vertical.
E-commerce profits from digital innovations
E-commerce providers benefit from the investments manufacturers allocated to innovate and digitalize their entire supply chain, including sale channels. One in two professionals taking part in a recent survey stated that their
companies are planning to transform digital services, e-commerce infrastructure, and customer portals. E-commerce contributes to a one-digit share of
manufacturers' sales, as companies still largely rely on sales representatives and distributors.
E-procurement or how big manufacturers are purchasing
Big manufacturing groups work differently, as they often integrate and automate the purchase process in their enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. To achieve that in an efficient way, large organizations use online procurement platforms, i.e. software dedicated to purchase transactions and strategic storage of suppliers’ and buyers’ data. In 2022, nearly six in ten
manufacturers intending to invest in e-procurement wanted to modernize business processes and reduce costs.
Don’t forget marketplaces
In the United States, e-commerce sales have grown in the manufacturing sector, suggesting that the numerous players populating the market might have opportunity to thrive. While giants Alibaba and Amazon Business dominate the
generalist market, the ranking of U.S.
B2B specialized vendors shows a quite diverse pool of players including manufacturers and shipping service providers. E-commerce proved to be a successful channel for contractors' platform Equipment Share, now completing an almost 300 million U.S. dollars funding round. Lastly, online store sales of industrial supply companies
Fastenal and
Grainger increased remarkably over the last years.
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