Inaugural study reveals B2B e-procurement opportunities
following a year of immense transformation, including government,
education, healthcare, and commercial industry buyers’ increased
focus on social and environmental issues
Amazon Business today released the first 2021 B2B E-commerce in
Evolution Report, which shares B2B trends and new insights from
U.S. procurement professionals across industries and organizations
of every size. For the report, which examines the rapid
transformation B2B e-procurement has undergone in recent years,
Amazon Business surveyed 250 B2B buyers and 250 B2B sellers who
hold influential procurement roles across government, education,
healthcare, and commercial industries in the U.S. This report also
provides actionable insights for business decision-makers, on both
the buying and selling sides, as they continue their digital
transformation journey in 2021 and beyond.
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According to the findings, 85% of business buyers said that as a
result of the pandemic, their organizations were propelled to move
more of their procurement online, and 96% said they anticipate
their organizations will continue doing more purchasing online,
even after pre-pandemic business functions resume. The vast
majority (91%) of buyers said they prefer e-procurement over
traditional and offline purchasing methods.
“Our 2021 B2B E-commerce in Evolution report underlines the fact
that simply leveraging e-procurement is no longer enough,” said
Todd Heimes, director of Amazon Business. “Ultimately, we think
that organizations have a significant opportunity to maximize
e-procurement technologies that will help them overcome operational
challenges that diminish efficiency and waste budget. For seller
organizations, adapting to meet buyer demands will allow them to
remain relevant with their B2B customers. At Amazon Business, we’re
committed to helping buyers and sellers navigate the next chapters
in their transformation journeys with our technology and
expertise.”
Download the 2021 Amazon Business B2B E-commerce in Evolution
Report here. Key takeaways include:
The pandemic accelerated digital transformation, helping
organizations achieve new goals.
The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated organizations’ efforts
to digitize procurement. According to the report’s findings, 38% of
buyers made more than 50% of purchases for their organizations
online in 2020.
Smaller commercial organizations were especially motivated to
accelerate their digital transformation efforts in the last year.
Fifty-six percent of small and-medium businesses (SMBs) said they
more fully digitized their purchasing process due to COVID-19,
compared to only 42% of enterprise commercial companies. This
indicates that smaller organizations had to play “catch up” to
large enterprises when the pandemic upended in-person operations
and forced a shift to remote work. Ultimately this acceleration to
adopt and adapt to purchasing online has resulted in additional
benefits for buyers and sellers by unlocking new features and
technologies that will enable them to do more—impacting their
entire organization.
Online features significantly outrank traditional ones in
buyers’ purchasing decision processes.
When ranking the most valuable features of the purchasing
process, buyers overwhelmingly indicated that online features, such
as product comparisons or product videos, were more valuable than
traditional ones, such as phone calls or viewing products in a
store. Sellers, by contrast, ranked online features much lower than
buyers. In the report, when looking at respondents who rated
features a “4” or “5” (where 5 was most valuable):
- Buyers ranked online product comparison features the highest
83% of the time, whereas sellers only ranked them the highest 67%
of the time.
- Buyers ranked product videos the highest 74% of the time,
whereas sellers only ranked the feature highest 66% of the
time.
- Sellers ranked viewing products in a physical store highest 68%
of the time, compared to buyers who only ranked it highest 57% of
the time.
- Sellers ranked phone and/or video calls with a sales rep
highest 69% of the time, compared to buyers who only ranked it
highest 63% of the time.
For 2021, the top priority identified by sellers is providing a
positive customer experience (62% of respondents), followed by
expanding customer bases (59%), and selling products globally
(40%). Meanwhile, the top priority for buyers is increasing
efficiency, with 40% of respondents selecting this option. However,
more than one-third (34%) of buyers said reducing costs is a top
procurement priority this year—though cost reduction is a higher
priority in the education, government, and healthcare industries
than in commercial industries.
Social and environmental considerations are playing a larger
role in the procurement process.
Increasingly, over the past year, expectations between consumer
and business purchasing experiences have become blurred as business
buyers expect the same fast, convenient, and personalized digital
buying capabilities they’ve grown accustomed to at home. And
consumers want to support diversity and sustainability products and
initiatives from the brands they give their dollars to. The 2021
Amazon Business B2B E-commerce in Evolution report revealed that
the consumer push to prioritize social and environmental issues is
also important to both B2B buyers and sellers, in all
industries.
- While increasing efficiency was the top buyer procurement
priority for 2021 at 40%, improving sustainability in purchasing
(39%), supporting local businesses within our community (37%), and
increasing diversity among suppliers (35%) were all close
behind.
- Additionally, 83% of buyers surveyed said their companies plan
to increase their purchasing budgets reserved for Black and
minority-owned businesses in 2021; and of those, almost half (48%)
plan to increase their budgets by 20% or more.
Priorities for 2021 vary across healthcare, education,
government, and commercial industries.
According to the report, the top priorities per industry for
2021 are:
- Education - Reducing costs (48%)
- Government - Supporting remote work (50%)
- Healthcare - Increasing efficiency (52%)
- Commercial - Improving sustainability (49%)
Additionally, 32% of healthcare respondents said accessing
suppliers that meet the needs of their business was the top pain
point in 2020, which aligns with the prioritization of increasing
efficiency this year in an industry where stringent product
specifications and regulatory requirements can make sourcing
necessary supplies challenging.
Of note, commercial business respondents identified the next two
top procurement priorities for 2021 as supporting local businesses
within the community (46%) and increasing diversity (39%); this
indicates the growing importance of corporate social responsibility
in the commercial sector.
Amazon Business B2B E-commerce in Evolution Report
methodology
Amazon Business surveyed 250 B2B buyers and 250 B2B sellers
across the U.S. in 2021. Buyer respondents included full- and
part-time employees across a range of job levels who worked at
organizations of various sizes in the following sectors:
government, education, healthcare, and commercial industries. All
buyers’ organizations made an annual revenue of more than $25
million. All buyer respondents played an influential role in their
organization’s procurement process. Seller respondents included
full- and part-time employees across a range of job levels who
worked at organizations of various sizes that sold products across
a variety of categories.
About Amazon Business
Amazon Business helps millions of customers worldwide—from small
businesses, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, and government
agencies, to large enterprises with global operations—reshape their
procurement with cost and time savings, greater productivity, and
insightful purchasing analytics. Procurement and business leaders
enjoy convenient shipping options on hundreds of millions of
supplies across categories like office, IT, janitorial, food
service, and professional medical supplies. Customers also have
access to a variety of business-tailored features and benefits,
including a curated site experience, Business Prime, business-only
pricing and selection, single or multi user business accounts,
approvals workflow, purchasing system integrations, payment
solutions, tax exemptions, dedicated customer support, and more.
Amazon Business is currently available in the United States,
Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and
India. For more information, visit business.amazon.com,
www.amazonbusinessblog.com, and @AmazonBusiness.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210614005021/en/
Shireen McCleary Amazon Business Public Relations Manager
shimcc@amazon.com
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