COVID accelerated B2B eCommerce toward the simplicity of B2C shopping. Buyers now expect fast online checkout with access to contracts, specs, and live video support from engineers. The next decade favors platforms that streamline B2B purchasing while most competitors stay fragmented.
So I wanted to talk about B2B ecommerce, and the first question is, why are we talking about this? And the reason is because, well, McKinsey. And what you just saw was an interesting graph which said that the sales process for B2B ecommerce has changed during the pandemic, and I believe is going to continue to change just like it did in B2C, where people go to buy business services and industrial equipment, any sort of equipment really, Online because it's faster, better, easier, cheaper, instead of having to go through a million different sales channels, a bunch of contract negotiation. Ideally, what you buy and check out with in the B2B space is it looks just like a regular checkout experience, except you can read all of the contracts, all of the specifications. You have a live video chat with one of the SDRs, the sales reps, maybe a solutions engineer that you can just click a button, pops open a window, connects you with somebody, and in real time get answers to your questions. In this way, the process of buying business products and services would be greatly reduced, and there'd be a lot of efficiency left over. So I think over the next decade, it's going to be a major wave that the smartest entrepreneurs and business people will ride and take advantage of. So when the rest of the world zigs, make sure you zag.
