By Tom Woods

Endeca Technologies, Inc., a search and business intelligence (BI) company has announced the results of an eCommerce survey of business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) organisations. The survey of 430 B2C and 160 B2B professionals reveals business results for 2010 as well as areas of focus for 2011. The full reports, entitled “B2C eCommerce Trends for 2011” and “B2B eCommerce Trends for 2011”, are available in the Resource Center on endeca.com.

“Consumers are demanding content-driven, multichannel commerce,” said John Andrews, vice president, product marketing, eBusiness at Endeca. “The majority of B2C organisations we surveyed are attempting to deliver dynamic user experiences, but are finding it hard to do so consistently across channels. The B2B community is also pulled by the rich consumer experience its users expect in their professional interactions, but face greater complexity in terms of content, channels, geography and brands.”

Delivering Content-driven, Multichannel Experience Priority for B2C

Today’s consumers demand user-centric, anytime/anywhere information, and expect their experience on a mobile device, online, or in-store to be interchangeable – and on their terms. Both merchandisers and technical teams are tasked with managing the growing landscape of programmes and supporting technologies – with continually evolving best practices. Responses gathered from 430 B2C eCommerce professionals from leading retail, media, and consumer manufacturing organisations showed the following:

• Online revenue, traffic, conversion rates, order values up in 2010. 72% of respondents reported that online revenue was up over the last year. 77% reported higher total traffic, with 61% seeing more natural traffic and 50% reporting higher traffic from paid search programmes.

• Investment in user experience top priority. 64% reported that optimising the user experience with features like enhanced search, navigation, product content, and overall ease of use is a priority. Confidence-building elements that drive transactions like user reviews, communities, and personalisation to further enrich the user experience is also an area of focus.

• Half struggle to understand when to use right technology, integrate best-of-breed solutions. 45% said integrating technologies is difficult for technical teams managing a growing backlog, and is also arduous for business teams who are struggling to understand when to use the right technologies to deliver cohesive user experiences.

• Improving and leveraging product content a top priority. 44% of respondents mentioned building out complete product content (like images, data, video, user guides, etc.) and purposing it across channels as a top priority for 2011.

• Mobile ranks number one for new areas of investment. 35% state they have a mobile programme in place, while 30% are in early stages of implementation and 25% are investigating options and plan to have a live mobile programme in 2011. Less than 5% reported no mobile initiatives planned in the next 12 months.

B2C Experiences Set Expectations for B2B Customers

B2B Commerce has evolved significantly over the past few years. B2B websites are critical to influencing decision-making and building a stronger relationship between the brand and the end-customer. B2C experiences increasingly influence expectations for what a B2B user experience should be: easy, personalised, and consistent across all touchpoints. Among 160 respondents surveyed, 49% came from the distribution industry, the remainder from manufacturing and other B2B industries. Key findings included:

• Online equals traditional as key influence channel. 93% of the 160 respondents highlighted the online / web channel as the number one tool used, followed closely by the direct sales channel at 75%.

• B2C capabilities impact and guide B2B customers. 70% of B2B professionals agree or strongly agree that their customers’ expectations follow at-home consumer practices.

• Personalisation ranked most influential. Respondents ranked personalisation capabilities (68%), the online catalogue (64%), and SEO (60%) as the top three B2C initiatives influencing B2B customer decision-making.

• B2B companies support a range of business models globally. B2B business models range from pure B2C and pure B2B operations to more complex B2B2B models and B2B2C. Nearly 15% of respondents indicated that all of these models are part of their business profile.

• B2B marketing and commerce initiatives for 2011 . When asked to select “all that apply,” the majority of respondents selected conversion rates and search engine optimisation (SEO), leveraging product content across channels, and developing more robust product information as the top areas of focus.

New customer expectations are inspiring innovation and driving competitive pressure in B2B industries like distribution and manufacturing. B2B business leaders are seeking to roll more B2C-like capabilities into the B2B user experience while simultaneously expanding their businesses into new geographies and channels.

About the author and Endeca

Tom Woods is PR for Endeca, a search and business intelligence software company that improves daily decisions for employees and purchase decisions for customers. Endeca’s hybrid search-analytical database enables IT organisations to deliver solutions with consumer ease-of-use on diverse and changing information, for companies such as Boeing, Cox Newspapers, the United States Department of Justice, Ford Motor Company, Hyatt, IBM, the Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com.

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