B2B customers also are B2C customers in other areas of their lives, and have grown accustomed to researching, finding, and purchasing what they need online. It seems only natural, then, that they transfer their online behaviors to the workplace. See my related blog post on March 2013. B2B organizations slow at embracing this reality incur the huge risk of gradually being wiped out by their competition or by Amazonsupply.com once the latter widens its product selection to your industry and company’s line of business.

What stands in the way of e-commerce for B2B players is often its sales team. Some sales teams see e-commerce and self service functionalities as a direct threat to their value add when, in fact, e-commerce will only increase volume and speed of transactions, and provide sales team with tons of data and insights into their client accounts. See Grainger’s powerful example below.

Pricing is another roadblock to e-commerce adoption by B2B organizations. Many don’t have readily available prices, because it might involve a lengthy assessment of customer needs, deal structuring, and negotiation. However, there are many ways the e-commerce site can address that, such as make available standard ”off-the –shelf” products or services, provide a price range, ask the client to  “request a quote,” and provide some necessary inputs for that quote, etc. The sales team can then pick up the conversation from there. In the end, the e-commerce site simply increases the volume of prospects, and opportunities for the sales team that can, then, spend more time closing deals than sourcing deals.

Grainger is a great and successful example of B2B digital commerce. It started its e-journey in 2000 and invested a significant amount of resources since then. Today, a third of its transactions come from its e-commerce site, and 14% of its traffic comes from mobile devices.

If, as a B2B company, you haven’t started to think about your e/m-strategy, it’s never too late!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grainger unveils a new B2B e-commerce platform and iPad app
An Internet Retailer exclusive details the B2B retailer’s plans.

By Amy Dusto
Internet Retailer
11/18/2013

W.W. Grainger Inc. tomorrow will complete a migration, several months in the making, of the majority its customers to a new e-commerce platform, the B2B retailer of maintenance, repair and other products exclusively tells Internet Retailer. With updated navigation and order management tools, the platform, designed for Grainger’s corporate clients, allows up to 1,500 staffers to log into a single business account and place, approve or track orders via the web or with one of Grainger’s mobile commerce sites or apps, the merchant says. Helping to foster the platform’s utility across devices, Grainger tomorrow also will unveil a new iPad app.

(…)

Customers that use Grainger’s mobile sites and apps approve orders 40% faster on average than those who don’t, Robertson says. Additionally, one in five Grainger orders placed on a mobile device are picked up in one of the retailer’s 360 U.S. branches, which is significantly higher than the number of web orders picked up in stores, he says.

(….)

The retailer built the iPad app in-house after analytics revealed that many customers were trying to use its iPhone app or access the mobile site on their iPads, says Michael Cooney, senior product manager for mobile. Mobile apps have almost a 9% higher conversion rate than the m-commerce web site for Grainger, and shoppers come back to apps more often, he says. Overall, 14% of Grainger’s traffic now comes from mobile devices, a number that continues to grow. In response, the retailer is increasingly adopting a “mobile-first” approach to future web developments, he says.

Online retail is also growing for Grainger. Today, one-third of its sales come from the web, and the retailer predicts web orders will account for 40% or 50% of total sales within the next few years, says Paul Miller, vice president of global e-commerce.

(…)

On top of those sales, customers are increasingly starting their product searches on Google Inc.’s search engine and turning to social media for buying suggestions, both of which indirectly influence sales both online and offline, Miller adds.

Accordingly, Grainger has expanded the number of paid search keywords it manages from less than 10,000 in 2010 to more than 5 million today, he says.

(…)

The retailer’s significant e-commerce and m-commerce updates come after it opened in May an e-commerce headquarters in downtown Chicago. Grainger decided to add a city office rather than rely on its headquarters 30 miles north, in Lake Forest, IL, mainly to attract and have better access to the developers, Miller says.

Read full article here

Either LinkedIn is doing it wrong, or there is a lot of educating to do to get B2B marketers to use social media and other digital channels for advertising, or both.

In this study from eMarketer, Google is expected to capture 53% of market share in mobile advertising (vs. 33% of market share across all devices), and Facebook 15% of market share in mobile advertising (vs. only 5% of market share across all devices) in 2013. Kudos to Facebook, who is quickly catching up despite a slow start in the mobile arena. But Yahoo! and LinkedIn are not even in the mobile advertising picture! Yahoo still clings on its 3% of market share of the desktop web ad revenue, but better hurries on the mobile front, if it does not want to disappear from the advertising world altogether.

LinkedIn could be the perfect platform for B2B advertising, yet their advertising engine still hasn’t fired up. There are two factors at play here. First, LinkedIn has a lot of work to do to come up with good, standard advertising and marketing products that can be easily replicated for various industries and B2B marketers. Second, the B2B marketer still relies heavily on trade shows, white papers, webinars, i.e. traditional B2B marketing channels, and is slow in adopting newer forms of the digital medium.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Facebook Sees Big Gains in Global Mobile Ad Market Share
Google to take home half of $16.65 billion worldwide mobile ad market

eMarketer
08/28/2013

Facebook’s continued emphasis on mobile monetization, along with its users’ ongoing shift toward mobile devices, is resulting in dramatic gains in mobile ad market share, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates of worldwide ad spending and revenues at significant players in the mobile and digital ad markets.

The company is expected to see its share of global mobile internet ad revenues reach 15.8% this year, up from just 5.35% in 2012, which was the first year that Facebook had any mobile ad offerings. eMarketer previously estimated Facebook’s share of mobile ad revenues worldwide would reach 12.9% this year.

eMarketer estimates that Google will grab 53.17% of the worldwide mobile ad market this year, up slightly over 2012—primarily a result of continued growth in mobile search usage and further mobile monetization of YouTube. The overall mobile ad market worldwide is expected to grow 89% to $16.65 billion in 2013, eMarketer estimates.

Both Facebook and Google are now the top ad publishers not only for mobile, but for all digital as well—with an even stronger lead on the competition.

Across all devices, Google remains by far the No. 1 digital ad publisher in the world and will take in nearly 33% of all digital ad dollars worldwide this year, eMarketer estimates, up from 31.46% in 2012. Facebook will also increase its share of the total, to 5.41%, while Yahoo! will lose some ground. Microsoft’s share of the worldwide market will hold steady.

Read full article here

A passive "house is so energy-efficient that it will run on the same amount of power it takes to operate a hand-held hair dryer”.  Isn’t that great? Simply add solar panels to recharge your electric car at home and you can disconnect yourself from the grid! No storm will shut your power off! No need of expensive, inefficient and polluting back up generators to make up for the average 3 days it takes a utility crew to reach your home and restore power after a storm. If everyone were to live in a passive home it would save the government and states billions of dollars of upgrade, maintainance, vegetation management, emergency repair of a costly antiquated electrical grid and wiring system.

But with low natural gas prices and no carbon tax, it might be difficult to find a good business model that would attract venture capital invesment in passive houses.  Elon Musk made it, against all odds, with electric cars (Tesla), and solar panels (SolarCity), success in passive homes should be within easier reach than space exploration (SpaceX)?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Passive House: Sealed for Freshness

By Sandy Keenan
The New York Times
08/14/2013

SEATTLE — When you visit Sloan and Jennifer Ritchie’s new passive house in the Madison Park neighborhood here, it takes a while to notice all the things you’re not hearing.

Look out the living room windows and you can see a gardener wielding one of those ear-piercing leaf blowers in the yard, but you would never know it inside.

There is no furnace or air-conditioner clicking on or off, no whir of forced air, and yet the climate is a perfect 72 degrees, despite the chilly air outside.

Then there are the things you’re not feeling. In one of the most humid cities in the country, you aren’t sticky or irritable, and the joints that sometimes bother you are mysteriously pain-free.

The air inside the house feels so fresh, you can almost taste its sweetness.

On paper, at least, the Ritchies’ home sounds too good to be true: an environmentally responsible house without traditional heating and air-conditioning systems that will be an airy 70 to 74 degrees on the coldest day of winter and the hottest day of summer, but use only a fraction of the energy consumed by a typical house.

And yet it’s not some experiment or futuristic dream. Nearly 30,000 of these houses have already been built in Europe. In Germany, an entire neighborhood with 5,000 of these super-insulated, low-energy homes is under construction, and the City of Brussels is rewriting its building code to reflect passive standards.

But in the United States, since the first passive house went up 10 years ago, in Urbana, Ill., only about 90 have been certified. Why aren’t they catching on here?

Part of the problem is the cost. Higher fuel prices and energy taxes in Europe provide a major incentive to embrace passive standards, which are complicated and make construction more expensive. In this country, it could be a decade or more before the energy savings someone like Don Freas enjoys in his 1,150-square-foot passive house in Olympia, Wash., offsets the extra $30,000 or so it cost to build.

“But those are such non-sexy ideas,” said Mr. Freas, 61, who is a sculptor and poet. “What matters is that I have never lived in such a comfortable house.”

Proponents of passive building argue that the additional cost (which is estimated at 5 to 20 percent) will come down once construction reaches critical mass and more American manufacturers are on board. And there are a few signs that day may be coming. More than 1,000 architects, builders and consultants have received passive-house training in this country; at least 60 houses or multifamily projects are in the works; and Marvin Windows, a mainstream manufacturer based in Minnesota, recently began making windows that meet passive certification standards.

Read full article here

There is no doubt about it; you need a technically savvy marketing team who understands user experience and all of the functionalities a mobile platform can offer. Essentially, having marketers with a product management skillset on your team can get you ahead of the game when it comes to producing great mobile advertising campaigns.

My favorite mobile ad campaign remains Germany’s BMW snow tire one during the winter of 2008.  On the first snowy day, BMW simply sent a personalized MMS to the customers who had bought one of their cars that past summer. Each customer would see a picture of the exact model —including color— of the car they had purchased along with the set of snow tires recommended for that specific model and the associated price. This $60K ad campaign totaled $45M of revenue. Unbeatable!

What made this campaign so good? It was relevant: timely—appearing on the day they suddenly should be thinking about snow tires; specific—helping consumers decide which, among zillions of tires, they needed; helpful—thereby saving the customer tons of time; and included an easy call to action—customers were able to just call or buy online.

This was possible because BMW had good data on its customers. All the technology in the world can’t make up for a company’s poor data hygiene and governance. Because good customer data is key for effective marketing, companies must pay particular attention to their data, and be willing to allocate the necessary resources on it. Marketing teams are best served with data lovers in their teams and a very close partnership with their IT and data teams.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why the best mobile ad campaigns start with technology, not creative

By Mahi de Silva
VentureBeat
05/06/2013

Last month at international ad festival Cannes Lions, one of the most closely watched areas was the mobile category, where this year there were over 1,000 entries. As the judges noted, winning ad campaigns combined creativity, idea, execution, and relevance in a way that could only be achieved through the mobile platform. The emphasis was on portability, connectivity and pervasiveness – in other words, campaigns that were mobile at their very core.
Why is this important? Because for the first time, a coveted win at this exclusive festival was less about the creative – the emotional effect of the “art” on the consumer – and more about the technology. A win in the mobile category meant the agency had to ditch the idea of creative concept first and start thinking platform first. In a way, it’s the last shovelful of dirt being thrown onto the grave of the Mad Men era.

Cannes is by no means a measure of which campaigns are the most effective. Unlike many digital awards, there is little to no emphasis on metrics or results. But most of the winning mobile campaigns were highly effective. Why? Because they integrated mobile technology into the user experience.

What is mobile technology?
Mobile technology is enabled through device-specific hardware like GPS, the accelerometer, the gyroscope, camera, microphone, and the natural gesture-based navigation. But it’s also the software: calendar, maps, photo filters, QR readers, web access, weather, e-commerce, and social media sharing. And let’s not forget the antiquated click-to-call or phone call feature.

We just named about a dozen unique, interactive elements that have never before been available to marketers in one package. Print, television, desktop, even out-of-home digital display and POS advertising pale in comparison to what mobile offers. It is by far the most exciting and most powerful medium for anyone looking to capture the attention of a consumer audience.

The trick, however, is finding the right combination of technology for each campaign, and then coming up with the artful and engaging creative to match.

The creative challenge
When thinking platform-first instead of concept-first, creative teams have to be able to imagine the utility of the campaign to the user, not the impression. They have to put function before form, which can be a challenge to the average agency creative.


Read full article here

If you’re a B2B business and don’t have the capital, resources, know how, or risk appetite: this is a great way to start your e-commerce journey !




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
B&H Photo sharpens its focus on b2b sales
Online b2b sales have surged since joining the Ariba Discovery portal.

By Paul Demery
Internet Retailer
04/09/2013

When e-retailer B&H Photo, Video and Pro Audio decided to focus on selling to other businesses a few years ago, the retailer asked some of its customers for advice on how to grow its b2b sales. Taking their advice, B&H started contacting buyers though an online b2b network and within the past two years has grown online b2b sales by more than 100%, says Barry Eisenberg, manager of business development, contracts and procurement.

B&H, No. 165 in the Internet Retailer Top 500, still does most of its sales to consumers, topping $100 million in 2011. It sells some 300,000 consumer electronics products, ranging from professional-grade cameras and audio equipment to personal computers, studio lighting equipment and binoculars.

But after setting up a profile on Ariba Discovery in the second half of 2011, B&H quickly added “hundreds of thousands” in new b2b sales by lining up interested buyers, Eisenberg says. He declines to specify B&H’s total b2b sales. Ariba Discovery is a business-matching service delivered on the Ariba Network, a b2b trading network used by nearly 1 million buyers and sellers to connect and collaborate.

In the past B&H had prospected for b2b customers mostly through mailing or e-mailing thousands of pitches to potential buyers on industry lists. But it would take hours of staff time to sift through replies to find and match buyers with the right products.

Today a dedicated staff spends about 20 minutes each day viewing up to about 10 customer leads in Ariba Discovery, where potential customers can view B&H’s profile with its full product catalog. B&H staff can respond within minutes through the portal to prospects requesting more information, Eisenberg says.

Although 10 prospects a day might not sound like a lot, in the b2b world it can quickly add up to a large new source of sales from steady repeat customers dealing in high volumes, he says. 

Read full article here

Yes, 70% of Pinterest users are female, but as Michael Silverstein explains in his book “Women Want More: How To Capture Your Share Of The World's Largest, Fastest-Growing Market” —a book on which I collaborated, and so I might be a little biased —, women control $20 trillion (yes with a T) of the world’s consumer spending.  Not only are their income earnings growing exponentially, but they also make the majority of the purchasing decisions for the household. Simply put, “Women are the most powerful consumers in history.” They not only make purchasing decision on apparel, household items, food, and education but also in cars, healthcare, financial services, electronics, phone services, and so on. It’s amazing that more companies in these latter categories haven’t even considered looking at Pinterest as a marketing vehicle… and they may just be missing a huge opportunity!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A holiday-focused Pinterest contest helps Blue Nile gain followers
The online jewelry retailer used an eight-day Valentine’s Day sweepstakes.

By Zak Stambor
Internet Retailer
04/08/2013

A little more than a year ago, executives from online jewelry retailer Blue Nile Inc. began noticing that a wide swath of consumers were spending a lot of time on Pinterest, the social network where consumers can ‘pin’ and share favorite products and images from around the web.

Looking at what consumers were doing on the platform, the executives noticed that many shoppers were using the social network to mark or organize milestones by, for instance, pinning dresses, flowers and jewelry that they could then use for inspiration when planning their nuptials. On Pinterest, consumers add their pins to boards, which are organizational tools used to group pins together around a particular theme—for example “Wedding planning.”

To Blue Nile, No. 71 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, Pinterest represented a prime opportunity to showcase its products, particularly since consumers were already pinning its products on the social network. The retailer launched its presence in February 2012 and began highlighting its offerings via boards like “Wedding hair & earrings” and “Mother of the bride gifts.”


The only problem with Pinterest, says a Blue Nile spokesman, was that it didn’t offer retailers analytics tools that would enable it to dig into what shoppers were pinning and interacting with. So while the retailer could see that, say 1% of its site traffic stemmed from shoppers clicking on items pinned from its site, it couldn’t tell which items those were.

To get that type of information it began to work with social marketing analytics vendor Pinfluencer (the vendor has since renamed itself Piqora) last July. The vendor enables the retailer to track and measure which pins consumers respond to, which has helped the retailer better use the platform, the spokesman says. It also offers tools that make it easy to launch contests, he says.

The retailer used Piqora’s tools to launch a Valentine’s Day promotion aimed at gaining followers, which is important because the brand’s presence on the platform is still new, the spokesman says. To enter, consumers had to follow the retailer on Pinterest, then re-pin three diamond rings from Blue Nile’s “Be My Valentine” board to one of their own boards for a chance to win a ring that typically sells for $900. The eight-day contest netted the retailer about 5,000 new followers, which is 233% more than the roughly 1,500 new fans it gains during a typical eight-day window, the spokesman says. And the retailer’s pins were re-pinned more than 50,000 times, which exposed hoards of shoppers to the brand, he says. That’s because when a consumer logs on to the social network she sees the items that her friends on the platform have pinned or repined from another user’s board.


Read full article here

With $469B in revenues, Walmart ranks first in the Fortune 500 above Exxon Mobil, and yet its online revenues only account for 1-2% of its total sales: $4.9B in 2011, and expecting $9B in 2012.

Compare that to Amazon $50B online revenues and 200 million SKUs (vs. 2 million for Walmart). It’s high time for Walmart to shift its strategy and go all-in digital commerce or incur the risk of being slowly eaten away by Amazon. Walmart is in a unique position with its 4,000 centers (vs. Amazon 40 warehouses). These stores can be leveraged as fulfillment hubs and enable same day delivery and accommodate for “ store pick-up”: features that will be hard for Amazon to replicate.

As ‘Good to Great’ author Jim Collins suggests with its hedgehog concept or Charles Duhigg in his book ‘The power of habit’ with its “keystone” habit: companies that are chasing too many rabbits end up failing. Strategy is about picking the ONE thing the company needs to be good at. The customers have moved online and mobile, digital commerce is a no-brainer and Walmart should probably re-align its organization accordingly with this new reality.

Let’s Walmart the once, premier in supply chain efficiency figures the logistic of running Walmart as a new e-commerce company.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wal-Mart outlines its e-commerce priorities
Expansion in key markets, technology development and fulfillment are all on the to-do list.

By Kevin Woodward
Internet retailer
03/19/2013

International expansion, a new technology platform and an improved fulfillment network are top e-commerce priorities for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the retailer outlined at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 Consumer & Retailer Conference.

Wal-Mart, No. 4 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 guide, expects to generate $9 billion in global e-commercerevenue in its current fiscal year, ending Jan. 31, 2014. In February, Wal-Mart’s Neil Ashe, president and CEO of global e-commerce, said e-commerce revenue growth was “accelerating and ahead of our plans.”

In 2011, Wal-Mart’s U.S. e-commerce sales totaled an Internet Retailer-estimated $4.9 billion, up nearly 20% from $4.1 billion the prior year. In comparison, Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the Top 500, had $48.08 billion in sales.

“We’ve got three clear priorities for e-commerce, and the first is to penetrate and expand in key markets,” Charles M. Holley Jr., executive vice president and chief financial officer said last week at the Bank of America event. “We have a very solid foundation of e-commerce in the United States and United Kingdom. We have a new and exciting platform of growth in China, and we have a very fast-growing business in Brazil.” Sales were healthy in Brazil last year, he said, with expectations for the same this year. He did not disclose sales figures for Brazil.

In 2012, Wal-Mart raised its stake to 51% in Yihaodian, a China-based e-retailer that sells more than 180,000 products. The deal gives Wal-Mart “a very strong foothold in the markets that can only be matched by the U.S. in terms of potential,” Holley said.

Another priority is to develop Pangaea, Wal-Mart’s global technology platform, Holley said. 

Read full article here

Most corporate executives have to make or influence the purchasing decisions in areas outside of their core competencies. For example a CEO, CMO and CIO might have to jointly decide and purchase some enterprise grade mobile security software to allow their employees to use their personal mobile device in the workplace. And these executives would most likely have no training, experience or previous knowledge of mobile security software.

 As this research article from the CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council in partnership with Google shows, these B2B customers will be doing most of their research on the web (mobile, desktop) before contacting potential vendors. So the information and answers these B2B buyers are looking for should be online.

• “Customer learning is happening all the time, and doesn’t coincide with your campaign calendar.”
  
• “If the customer is always learning, then Marketing must always be teaching.”

This is where ‘content marketing’ comes in. Content marketing is one of the most important ingredient of successful B2B marketing.  But as Corey Mull’s puts it, many organizations fail to do it right and B2B marketing teams often haven’t caught up with this evolution and adjusted their teams accordingly. “Most [of companies’] content is low value” and “not at all useful for customers in the midst of a learning journey.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
B2B’s Digital Evolution

Corey Mull
google.com/think
February 2013

The rundown
New research from CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council shows that potential business customers are increasingly using digital channels to form opinions about major purchases. Today’s business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete. The challenge for marketers is to be present in these channels at all times with content that educates buyers and helps guide commercial decisions.

Throughout 2011 and 2012, Google worked with CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council to survey 1,500 business leaders who have recently been involved in major purchases for 22 large B2B organizations. The results suggest that a new paradigm in business-to-business marketing has taken hold.

(…) 

The challenge is digital

(…)

It wasn’t always like this. That customers can engage in this self-directed learning is thanks to the internet; that they must learn about products and solutions themselves is a function of increased budget pressure amid a stagnant economy.

So what’s wrong with waiting for customers to come to us? Because by the time they do, they have hardened expectations about what they want out of a supplier – and at that point, your job is to take their order and fill it for the lowest price. They’re learning on their own, and there’s no room to teach them why what they’ve taught themselves is wrong.

It’s Marketing’s job to influence the 57 percent of the sale that occurs mostly on the web, before Sales contact, but three challenges – incomplete digital integration, ineffective content, and a poorly-optimized channel mix – are keeping marketers from growing mindshare and making the most of what they are getting already.

True integration

Most marketing leaders still treat digital as an unwanted appendage on the traditional marketing campaign cycle, which goes roughly like this: Create a new product, design a campaign touting its features and benefits, figure out a place to stick digital channels within that campaign architecture, execute, measure, repeat.

Take a look at the story we began with, and it becomes clear why this approach won’t work. Customer learning is happening all the time, and doesn’t coincide with your campaign calendar. Marketing organizations have largely been designed from the ground up to support and optimize campaigns, not maintain the continuous presence that the digital channel requires. Marketing management must adjust; if the customer is always learning, then Marketing must always be teaching. 

Persuasive, focused content

It’s not enough to teach; you have to teach well. And the dirty little secret of most content marketing is that it does neither. It’s obvious why: Content creation has been allowed to grow organically, with the inevitable result, our research shows, that it has typically spread across multiple business and product lines and lacks a consistent, cohesive message.

all of that leads us to the biggest problem with current B2B digital approaches: They rely on content that is not at all useful for customers in the midst of a learning journey. Most content is low value; it may be interesting or get a lot of ‘engagement,’ but it doesn’t help buyers make commercial decisions.

This is a structural problem. Marketing’s content creation machine is not designed to create consistent, focused messages.

Read full article here

In his book “The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India” Michael J. Silverstein predicts China will surpass the U.S. in e-commerce spending in 2015. Similarly, eMarketer predicts the Asia-Pacific region as a whole will surpass North America in e-commerce sales in 2013. 

All in all, total world e-commerce revenues crossed the $1 trillion mark in 2012 and are anticipated to reach $2 trillion in 2016 according to eMarketer.

E-commerce and Asia are two strategic market opportunities companies can’t afford to miss. What’s your strategy? Have you put your best and brightest on these topics?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ecommerce Sales Topped $1 Trillion for First Time in 2012
Asia-Pacific poised to surpass North America in B2C ecommerce spending

By eMarketer
02/06/13

Asia-Pacific poised to surpass North America in B2C ecommerce spendingIn 2012, B2C ecommerce sales grew 21.1% to top $1 trillion for the first time, according to new global estimates by eMarketer.

This year, sales will grow 18.3% to $1.298 trillion worldwide, eMarketer estimates, as Asia-Pacific surpasses North America to become the world's No. 1 market for B2C ecommerce sales.

Sales in North America grew 13.9% to a world-leading $364.66 billion in 2012—a figure expected to increase 12.2% to $409.05 billion this year—as more consumers shifted spending from physical stores to retail and travel websites thanks to lower prices, greater convenience, broader selection and richer product information. But despite strong growth, North America’s share of global sales will drop from 33.5% last year to 31.5% in 2013 as Asia-Pacific surges ahead.

B2C ecommerce sales in Asia-Pacific grew more than 33% to $332.46 billion in 2012. This year, the region will see sales increase by more than 30% to over $433 billion—or more than one-third of all global B2C ecommerce sales.

he rapid growth in Asia-Pacific sales is a result of several factors. Three Asia-Pacific markets—China, India and Indonesia—will see faster B2C ecommerce sales growth than all other markets worldwide this year, while Japan will continue to take a large share of global sales.

China, unsurprisingly, is the primary driver of growth in the region. The country will surpass Japan as the world’s second-largest B2C ecommerce market this year, taking an estimated 14% share of global sales, as its total reaches $181.62 billion, up 65% from $110.04 billion in 2012.

Read the full article here

Eleven percent of U.S. e-commerce sales in 2012 —or $25B — came from mobile, according to eMarketer, and they don’t anticipate this trend to revert downward. Yet, many businesses are still lagging behind in their mobile strategy. Unless your business is not selling anything to anyone, or you can’t yet afford it — app developers are in high demand, and supply is not always easy to find — you should probably think about your mobile strategy, whether your company is B2B or B2C.

Most of the laggards are found in B2B companies. But wait a minute, if you are a B2B company, don’t you think your buyers will research your company and products online first? When do buyers and company executives have time to do their research? They are surfing away during long and unproductive meetings, while traveling, or at home watching the kids…Are they lugging their eight pound laptop with them? Probably not. Today’s executive is working on a smartphone or a tablet. If your products and services aren’t easily accessible and readable from these devices, they might just skip to the next supplier.

And what about your sales team? Won’t they benefit from the ability to showcase your products and services to the customer directly from their iPad or tablet? Could you make it a good sales rep/customer conversation enabler?

Don’t feel too bad if your company has not yet fully embraced the mobile world, even Mark Zuckerberg, missed the boat for a little while before having to drastically correct the course. And the new strategy is working: according to Kenshoo, Inc, 20% of Facebook ad revenues in last November and December came from mobile.

There simply is no way around going mobile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tablets, Smartphones Drive Mobile Commerce to Record Heights

By eMarketer
01/09/2013

Maybe 2012 was the year of mobile after all. US retail mcommerce sales shot up 81% to nearly $25 billion last year, propelled by rapid adoption of tablets and smartphones as shopping devices, according to new estimates from eMarketer.

Mobile devices accounted for 11% of total US retail ecommerce sales in 2012, eMarketer estimates, and further growth is expected to push mobile sales to a 15% share of all US retail ecommerce sales this year.

Mcommerce sales include all purchases made via smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, excluding sales of travel and event tickets.

eMarketer’s mcommerce forecast reflects a confluence of three trends: first, the expanding number of smartphone shoppers whose behavior affects commerce in all channels; second, the growing number of smartphone buyers who enjoy the immediacy of purchasing through their phone and are expected to generate just over one-third of mcommerce sales this year; and third, the rapid rise in tablet shopping, which will produce the bulk of mcommerce sales over the next four years.

This year, US consumers will spend $24 billion shopping on their tablets, and that figure will nearly double by 2015. Mcommerce sales on smartphones are lower and will grow more slowly, reaching $13.44 billion this year and $24.32 billion by 2016. Purchases on other mobile devices, such as ereaders, will continue to make up a small but steady share of the mcommerce pie.

Read the full article here