The B2B eCommerce Landscape With Mark Brohan From Digital Commerce 360

Unknown Speaker : 0:07

All right, welcome to episode eight of the hard truth about b2b e commerce. I'm Isaiah Bollinger, your co host CEO of trellis and I'm here with Tim. Tim, take it away. Hey, everybody. Welcome to our podcasts. So I'm Timothy Peterson. I'm a client advocate for trellis and also I have a long career in b2b and b2c e commerce. Let me mention our sponsor, our sponsor is punch out to go their global b2b integration company. They specialize in connecting commerce, business platforms with E procurement and MRP applications and punch up to goes I pass technology seamlessly links, business applications to automate the flow of purchasing data,

Unknown Speaker : 0:49

a

Unknown Speaker : 0:50

punch out catalogs, electronic purchase orders, e invoices other b2b sales, order automation documents in order to accelerate business results. So thank you As sponsor, and then right back to USA. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm super excited to introduce our guest Mark from you guys are now digital commerce 360 It's a I'm still using internet retailer so it's hard for me to say that without getting thinking about the the old man. It's her

Unknown Speaker : 1:19

it's her new rebranding, so we thought we're gonna be super duper and with it, we hope hopefully we are you know, so yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 1:25

well, 360 b2b and b2c, it's all one you know, everything's just one thing. And, Mark, you obviously have a ton of experience in e commerce and, and retail and just commerce. So you know, I'd love to hear more about kind of your experience and how you got into this.

Unknown Speaker : 1:43

Well, we, you know, we're, as you mentioned, and thank you for mentioning us yet we're digital commerce 360 b2b and, as far as I know, we're the only journalistic research and news organization that covers b2b commerce day in day out from a retailer Search and analysis in strategic perspective, and we try and cover the waterfront, the technology, the business strategy, the best practices, all the things that move an entire market forward. We try and cover that. But at the end of the day, you know, we're just working reporters that try and go out and find out what the trends are, and go and talk to people. And then do two things, put it into perspective. But more importantly, tell our audience of these b2b professionals from a lot of walks of life, what does it mean to them? And so, giving data somebody is not just enough, you have to kind of tell them what it means to me, and how is that going to benefit me or not benefit me and then it's kind of up to them to, you know, filter the information and and kind of go on through but what we found is, is that, you know, we're journalists, so you know, we're not technology Companies, we're not consultants, we have no axe to grind. We're just here to try and cover the market and measure the growth and kind of find out what's new because we're a bunch of inquisitive online reporters at the end of the day. But covering b2b commerce is just fascinating from all the perspective I just mentioned. So it's a lot of fun, you know, so the days go by pretty quick.

Unknown Speaker : 3:23

Yeah, yeah. And it feels like the markets changing so fast. I mean, it's gone by I mean, I remember in 2000 when I started in 2012 2013, I was pretty young and optimistic. And I remember actually telling distributors prospective distributors, Hey, I know I can get you to a million dollars online and they thought I was crazy. Like they literally thought I was crazy because they were doing like zero online these companies. And now like looking back like a million online is nothing. Like it's, it's b2b, it's a drop in the bucket, right?

Unknown Speaker : 3:56

Here's some perspective because literally, I mean literally, if About two weeks ago, I finished our 2020 our b2b commerce 2020 Mark report what we that what we do is we, we measure what was the growth across all electronic channels for b2b for 2019. So it's good perspective. So what been there done that? Who cares? COVID-19 is changing the world. So we took a look at trying to kind of forecast with some actual numbers here, where we think b2b is going in 2020. So here's some takeaways. Last year b2b commerce justice sites, we just find I'm not very clear how we define those because there's very there's a lot of different buckets and b2b b2b commerce. It's actually digital commerce and electronic sales. So all in if you include CDI, if you include e procurement, if you include the private networks if you include the marketplaces, login portals and pure b2b commerce sites. It is a $9 trillion market, 9 trillion that grew last year by approximately 9%. Now, if you look at the growth spot was growing faster than anything else across all these wide b2b channels, which is EDR e procurement marketplaces, login logins, if you will, behind the scenes firewalls. It is it is the pure e commerce part of this the b2b e commerce sites, the marketplaces and even though it is behind a firewall is still a direct transaction that takes place on via the web. So I count that as e commerce that grew by 18% last year to 1.3 trillion. And guess what? b2c grew by 16% for the first time ever, b2b commerce grew faster than b2c e commerce. So that's a big takeaway. Yeah. The other takeaway, though, is so so there's a big Growth here. 2019 You know, people love to see the, you know, the meter go up, if you will. But, you know, in January along comes this pandemic. Oh, it'll be done in two weeks. We're back to normal. Well, not no such thing. So as we all know, you know, COVID and Coronavirus up into the world as we know it shuttered our $21 trillion economy. And what happened is that caught that costs a lot of companies unawares, because now procurement directors, purchasing managers, business owners, they're all working from home. And all of this is now suddenly shifting from even more so from fax and and mail and call and blah, blah, to ecommerce. So next thing you know, b2b commerce is seeing this tidal wave literally a tidal wave of demand for buying first, you know, the PP stuff. Then the sanitation stuff and they ran out of that. And then

Unknown Speaker : 7:06

what was happened since then is a lot of companies had to do crisis management. How do we cope with this? What do we do? You know, our world's going to stream here? So they was heads down. e commerce played a big part of that. How do we transition commerce? Because that seems to be growing, everything else is falling apart, what's happening here? So now the marketplaces past, you know, the crisis management stuff. These guys are into q4 planning already. They're looking to kind of manage the cost, get the ROI, right. But for the first time, they're trying to kind of see which way is all this heading, as we come out of, you know, the actual crisis management of these like tiered five openings. So what's what's what's all that going to mean? It's going to be a whipsaw effect, ecommerce this year will grow by an estimated 10% to about maybe 1.3 9 trillion. That's my early forecast. So yeah, it's up. But compared to 18% last year, why is that? Well, because manufacturing and distribution sales in 2020 are going to decrease by 1.52%. Because you've got entire productions, facilities, industry still offline. So there's going to be a plunge in, in, in in sales and activity. And that's reflected in, you know, the, you know, the US Department of Commerce, monthly numbers on manufacturing. And you see that in the manufacturers, procurement indexes, all these types of things. So, the thing is, it's going to grow and it's going to be less activity, but it's going to be still a pretty big year when you consider that still a $1.39 trillion market and to kind of put the most perspective on this is, for the first time ever in 2019. If you take that 9 trillion bucket of all the electronic sales, which has CDI e procurement, marketplaces, the site stuff, the logging stuff, all those buckets, that's what makes up digital Congress or electronic sales. My takeaways this 51.4% of all that $15 trillion market that makes the ball distribute distributed. This disturbs the manufacturer sales is electronic. So, what's the takeaway? The first takeaway is this 51% is still electronic, but guess what? That remaining 48% is still a multitrillion dollar market. Those who go and feast on that multitrillion dollar market will be the beneficiaries of the kind of growth that was gonna just kind of blow up b2c on the water, you know, because it's just a Such a bigger, more fragmented market. So more growth ahead. Yeah. There is a sea change underway because of because of the pandemic, but it's whipsaw luxury goods. You know, they're already forecasting online losses for q4, even though it's only the mid Yeah. But, you know, the PP people, the health safety people healthcare for the first time. If you've ever worked in the healthcare space, and I've told that vendor to health care supply, the supply chains, a very closed, very cloistered, very regulated market because you're dealing with health networks and hospitals the other way of doing things, healthcare as unto itself, along comes COVID-19 for the first time ever. Companies that had never in their life could have a marketplace or or b2b e commerce so you're kind of looking outside their clothes. Third time on er, healthcare supply chain. I can't get everything from McKesson like I used to, I can't get it off from Cardinal Health like I used to. These are my big guys. I have to have ventilators, mass gowns, bed pants, you name it. So for the first time, they began going out to places like Alibaba, Amazon business, eBay business, all these healthcare verticals and suddenly, you know, what? marketplaces are mushrooming even more so than last year, and becoming a chief driver for the first time of e commerce sales, because that's one impact is one impact the COVID-19 had on e commerce, which is to drive much more varied interest from all these new parties onto marketplaces of all sorts. So,

Unknown Speaker : 11:49

yeah, interject and pick up on one thing you just said mark that I really have found myself and some of the folks I've been talking to and it's there's also an effect during COVID b2b going b2c, which I have not really even thought about very much before, because a lot of these, you know, health care, or health and wellness or what have you related businesses, all of a sudden had this huge demand from average people, or small, let's say medical offices even and really became a b2c, or hybrid b2b kind of operation. And having to have these discussions about like, are the marketplaces you just said, or looking at commerce in ways that they never had to look before? I mean, when do you remember before COVID just being able to go on Amazon and get masks and gloves and whatever and such quantity and variety? You know, it just wasn't really even possible or it was so things have changed dramatically.

Unknown Speaker : 12:45

I guess I gotta tell you, this is uh, you know, you go out, you talk to these, you talk to these to these people, and we try and do that. That's kind of how Paul and I spend our day which is kind of going out and just knocking on doors and you tell us your stories, but I'll tell you funnel plug is, you know, Paul demaree is a, he's like a force of nature in b2b commerce. I've worked with Paul, he's been my colleague and friend for for 25 years, Paul was the first person from a journalist perspective to really get what b2b commerce is what it is kind of soup to nuts. And it's kind of a unique talent to have, because this stuff is kind of this stuff can be somewhat, I mean, it all gets clogged up and you got to unpack and understand each point. Paul has been so good at doing that. So that's why we're lucky to have Paul to this day. But anyway, you know, some of these guys the like you just mentioned they have some great war stories. I give you a case in point. There's a small March merchant by 25 million total sales, totally b2b, sustainable supply and he sells kind of green, kind of Green Label, if you will, products to, you know, to businesses of all sorts, and other one is a really interesting I have known a good friend of mine, Vic Hanna, he he runs a company called Betty Mills calm both of these for the most part are in you know a chunk of their business is is in their all their draw mostly b2b. But you know, Vic is completely healthcare. Brian over at over at sail supplies a chunk of that, you know when COVID-19 kids, they got cleaned out of you know the Purell stuff, you know, cleaning stuff overnight. And so you know, they put a call the Clorox Hey, when's your next delivery? They said, Well, maybe like late July. So what happened is to kind of get the point here is like, I stick one day four stories. How would you describe the current marketplace? This is like in March, right? When things are kind of coming in to the fence with me, he goes, it is a war out there. So to your point, the b2c stuff there are there is an example after example, after example of these companies. Where, for the first time they have to put in the personalization stuff? Okay, I'm out of x. Well, do you know what a product recommendation tool is? I sure don't. What does that do is suggest other products to people that because you're out of this stuff, and so you're right, a lot of b2c because we're all kind of working from home for a job now was hitting a lot of these companies flat the job so the thing is fine. You're running an advanced platform, you know, maybe you don't have it because but you're running an advanced platform, you know something about this stuff. That becomes an easier add on than not, but if you're still running some kind of homegrown legacy based e commerce platform, and suddenly you know, you're on X and people want x, I can't get x. I don't have the extra several more months. I can't tell why is that is been a big problem that a lot of people companies to this day are still scurrying to try. And yeah, and

Unknown Speaker : 16:07

sorry, I just want to touch on this point because you're getting into the platforms a little bit. And this is I think, what's interesting about b2b e commerce is the technology like you said, the tech, it's more fragmented in the market. It's more fragmented in technologies. So I'm curious if you're seeing what technologies you are seeing kind of becoming more successful than others, obviously, trellis, we're a little bit biased. And we do do a lot of Magento. But we still see. I mean, we are actually seeing some Shopify and b2b a little bit which is interesting. And then, you know, we also do big commerce and a couple others, but I'm curious to see what what platforms you see are kind of helping drive drive these companies forward most successfully. Insight seems to be another one that we see popping up more and more in the b2b space. Yeah, inside Yeah, inside inside has a pretty good platform conflict of that. It's here kind of company, but it's more I would answer that question more along the lines of the tool set that we're seeing that that can mean a lot of these tools and features that kind of ubiquitous for all the platforms, you know, if you will, but so it's kind of more from the tool feature perspective. So, you know, the personalization is is is the first component and the product recommendation is is is is a big thing there. But the next thing if you will, is if you kind of look at, you know, what the platform does, you know, for the first time, a lot of these companies are shifting means they got caught unawares. Okay, we ship mega mega truckloads and mega pallets of A to B. And our world for distribution is A to B to A to Z. Well, guess what? Suddenly we have all these small guys wanting all this stuff. We have got a frickin clue how to do that. What do we do so, one aspect is now You're seeing a lot more of, you know how sophisticated order tracking is in the b2c world, you know order fulfill order tracking picker, data delivery, blah, blah. We're so used to that on the b2c side. That is for a lot of these companies, the new the new world yet to conquer and b2b. So to answer your question, yeah, our product recommendation engine is one tool, we're seeing that they're getting a lot of, what is it? How do I use it? How do I fit it in, but if you take it one step further, the order management part of all this, there is a huge new world that is being exposed to these b2b guys where they got to figure out order shipping order tracking, you know, all of this and so they're not used to that and we're seeing a lot more interest in putting in place those kinds of tools for either a new platform we're adding to the platform they currently have so yeah, there's a lot of you think that their er peas aren't capable this you know, So hot, you know, that's where I think that the breakdown happens is because you know,

Unknown Speaker : 19:04

you could look at it like this you have your core e commerce platform you have a lot of times you could have a separate recommendations engine add on to the platform, right, which actually might be the better way to go. Some of these platforms just specialize in recommendations, they might be better at it than the core platform. But then, then you have to bring into the order management and also the GRP. So you like, that's where I think the breakdown happens a lot of times is you have all these disparate systems, different data, getting it all synced together. So you see that they, their er, peas aren't sufficient. So they need to also look at an order management on top of their europei or improve their CRP to do better or to manage Well, if you take that one. If you kind of take it one step further, you're onto something, which is probably the single biggest issue

Unknown Speaker : 19:47

that these b2b guys and it's mean, you know, it's I'm talking in generalities here. I'm kind of lumping everybody into kind of one bucket but, you know, because there's so many verticals and industries Where ecommerce differs for Market to Market? I mean, petrochemicals is not the same as MRO nor will never be So, you know? Yeah, is the so called commerce, you bet, you know, how you deliver? And do commerce is different from, you know, specialty chemicals is for MRO. But to your point, you know, the biggest single challenge, I think that a lot of these guys that are still holding them back is, you mentioned the eirp to, you know, to to an order management system. Well guess what, you can talk to some of these even small and mid sized companies that go back a lot of years and they don't just have one e er p, they have four to five. And, you know, that has been, that has been kind of driving their, you know, their back end for so many years that they know that they're, they're comfortable with the they can manage the cost to it, and efficient they know but it kind of gets them to the end of the day. So There is a big back end data mess that that only now are these companies beginning to clean up, you know, so, you know, things like AI, artificial intelligence, you know, blockchain and IoT, a lot of that kind of gets hyped, if you will, in the brave new world of digital commerce and digital transformation. But the fact of the matter is, there's going to be a big huge market for just those three tools alone, because those are the tools that begin to kind of clean up all these disparate, old legacy LRP supply chain issues, this suddenly now begin to kind of unify across divisions and company lines and all of that. Even global divisions are finally getting the back end in order to really begin to kind of do the data that feeds into a universal and fast e commerce experience. So the back end for a lot of these guys is a mess until they Until they kind of get that right. Ecommerce is really a pipe dream for them, they're not gonna pull it off, at least not with any kind of great success.

Unknown Speaker : 22:08

So you think that a big part of the failure is they're trying to do e commerce but really they're like, they're actually focused on the wrong thing because maybe they're on like a really like a CRP and they're not going to be able to integrate to the e commerce well enough or they're just, they're trying to like leap forward and not fix one of their core problems before they actually get the e commerce.

Unknown Speaker : 22:30

They don't get the entire food chain company after company after company, the pawl I talk to every single day. Yes, we're doing commerce. Well, what are you doing? Well, we put in this wonderful new platform from x and we're doing why and what percent of your product catalog is on that? Well, we do our new products there. Or we do our low end products there or we sell our or we sell our liquidated merchandise there because we're trying to understand this whole thing for called e commerce what that's like understanding how the footworks now the entire human body, and what they're focusing on is, they're kind of losing the micro to not quite see the macro. And that's where a lot of companies coming in trouble because they'll put the front end in. And they'll kind of go about putting together, you know, for the first time how to sell, you know, one of their low end products online, or their new product arrivals or so on, so forth. But at the meantime, if you kind of go back all the way across the food chain, they still have yet to understand the whole process and what could be lurking out there, which is a problem for a lot of these companies, the whole data message issue I just mentioned, you know, so to try to understand the footprint of e commerce site, what they're looking to kind of do is to kind of look at the entire process. And that takes a lot of time. A lot of resources, in a kind of a full team at the company. Kind of do that. But until you do, these companies aren't going to be successful e commerce this way, versus that way. So it's fun.

Unknown Speaker : 24:09

It's incredibly fun. And you know, one of the things also related to this, and I was talking to some folks about this recently, and it's it's so hilarious because average consumers never think of a lot of it. But it's a like, how do you move soil companies that move dirt, right, companies that move gravel companies that move mulch, how logging and lumber works, and you know, it's fascinating in a way, like each one of these things is a complete education every time I talk to somebody in one of these areas, but but they all bring up all sorts of new things. So you're right. I mean, sometimes they're having these conversations about like, you know, digital upgrade, or, you know, some server transformation or putting a site where something can be ordered. But it just is the tip of the iceberg and one of the things that came up I had not really thought much about was how much governments have to be involved in some of these different areas that people were can be to be when you're moving soil over certain, you know, state lines or certain quantities, it becomes a Department of Environmental Conservation thing. It's an Army Corps of Engineers thing. You know, it's permits that have to happen all along the way for transport. You know, it's astounding, right? And so a lot of this is not like I'm ordering soil from New York to Massachusetts. It's that how many different you know entities along the way have to give some sort of approval and how many of those can be digitized in any real way or not right. So it's it's astoundingly complicated so you can put a face figures the shop you know,

Unknown Speaker : 25:47

yeah, here's,

Unknown Speaker : 25:48

here's like, here's a war story for it. This is also a guest I would suggest that you have on your podcast and I'm happy to give you her contact information. But there is a A person name is Lisa butters. And Lisa botters is one of the kindest, nicest gracious, savvy ecommerce minds and all of b2b, Harvard MBA. But she runs. She works for Honeywell aerospace. And she launched a marketplace called go trade direct about two and a half, three years old. And, you know, she is just if she's not running something major inside five years, I mean, a huge ecommerce organization, I'd be very surprised. You'd I kind of looked at me, I've I've come to know for talent in any spot people and, you know, way back when BTC was going, you know, we start talking about the e commerce years back when they were just kind of getting their junior e commerce position and the next thing you know that they're the VPS and CEOs. And so, watching who's coming out who's coming out in the b2b world kind of lead the same way. Lisa butters is one of these people, because now I just she got it. She gets it and she loves Chelsea at windmills like Don Quixote. Here's a case in point. Gold trades are a part of final aerospace, aerospace replacement parts. It's a $14 billion industry $14 billion industry, and none of its e commerce. So Lisa

Unknown Speaker : 27:23

decided that Honeywell could take the lead on this. And they put together she looked at Etsy, and she looked at carmax. And she put together that became that that became the cornerstones for this marketplace that she built. And she is just very smart about using technology from the b2c side to apply it to this marketplace where even though it's Honeywell is an open marketplace, and they've got me I get the stats every quarter from her but you know, they've got some good volume going but here's a case Point via technology, ecommerce technology and blockchain. It used to be that when, like, let's say Learjet gets retired, it comes off the line. And then companies that like Honeywell will do this. They'll spend an entire length of time harvesting the entire plane and then they'll refurbish and resell the parts to, you know, the rest of the world replacement parts. They used to be a six month process from taking it off the plane, archiving it rehabbing it, catalog it again, for the system. Get it here get it their six month process, guess what? She came up with a blockchain application that made that happen from six months to two days. They could take it off, take it off, take it off, they could take it off. And because of blockchain, they could do all of the technology in between and you Just inside the course of two or three days, the full certification, the full history, all that stuff that has to go with, you know, selling a refurbished plane part, if you will. She did that more. She built this platform where for the first time $100,000 jet engine was sold to a guy with a CH email account, you know? Yeah. And so the thing is, slowly but surely, she says that we're going to teach this old line, aviation aerospace market, how to do e commerce and who's to say she's wrong and there's other examples like that in the world as well. I would also encourage you to look at a company called or a company called chez mondesi ch e mo n d is Who are they? They are a specialty and multi chemicals marketplace. That is just as innovative as Lisa butters. And they're German based in the kind of rolling out in the EU first but the covers in North America now. And we're talking about data being tied to the Commerce platform. Yeah, there. They are a great example for the first time, bringing that supply chain transparency to the marketplace and the commerce and for the first time, the especially chemical buyers can see parse the transaction and measure it and grow from there. They've never been put together before. It's a fascinating story. And you should have those two people as your guests. They're really great people in both instances, because they will give you some actual in the trench. How b2b is changing their styles your market is they're just great stories to tell.

Unknown Speaker : 30:53

Yeah, absolutely. Love for you to put us in touch with them. And we'll try and get them on. So I have a couple more questions right. You know, we talked a little bit about the challenges in the data part. So I think data is a big part of the failures. I think it's product data and the CRP data and getting that like, kind of synchronizing their data from like fulfillment and inventory so that when you're buying, you know, hot like, there's that unified experience by pricing is also a big one not so pricing, we kind of go into the into the data side, but let's say you solve all the data stuff, and that's some of the stuff that we're doing with trellis I still think there's another point of failure that we're seeing. And that that point where I see is kind of like strategy and culture and building the process into the sales team. So what I find is that a lot of these organizations, they get up and running and then the they treat the site like it's a customer like this that I've been trying to convince them to do more would be to be they almost treat it like a b2c site where like, it works, you know, but if you ask them To start bringing on big customers and we can create a corporate account for them and their big customers can, you know call it say Honeywell as their customer, then each division of Honeywell can get their own login that rolls up to the corporate login. And now all of a sudden, Honeywell is buying online, they get very scared because they're like, oh, then my salespeople are going to be obsolete. So I think there's this like cultural challenge to where like the salespeople have to be on board, and you have to kind of figure out how to commission the salespeople and rethink sales. So that sales is basically like selling new business or account managing and saying, hey, you bought a million dollars on the site, you know, but I noticed you didn't buy this. This is what you know, here's some things that you could also buy and upselling them instead of just taking orders over the phone. You see where I'm coming from there. And

Unknown Speaker : 32:46

it's funny because Don't you love how they mean?

Unknown Speaker : 32:51

A lot of companies just love to shoot themselves in the foot. And so you touched on one of the hot points which is the Salesforce Okay, let's talk about that. Okay, fine. You know, in a lot of industries, of course, the sales rep, well, that's my client. I know my client, nobody can serve as my client like me, because they know me, you know, and because that has been the tried and true pipeline, you know, for 100 odd years, 50 years, 25 years 50 follow whatever the time is. That is how they make their money. So a lot of these old companies are so afraid of trying to change up what works. And you know, the hire, I hear the story quite a bit. You bring in somebody who is, you know, who knows what e commerce is, know how it operates, knows what to do, knows how to do it, and guess what they come into, and they're a stranger in a strange land because they get it and nobody else around them who's their counterpart or who is their boss wants to do it because they're just fine with the way things are So they've been hired to put together this this wonderful e commerce platform and the CEO has growth plans in mind for the budget and they can't get off the dime because nobody else in the company buys into them and that's that's driven home with the Salesforce because a lot of these people are worried about losing revenue if they shift away from what kind of brings the money in now or you know, the employees themselves are reticent to do it because it's job security Commission's the whole nine yards. So here's two examples. Here's another guest for you. Go and invite Marta Dalton da l to and from Unilever, the best company whoever did anything was solving a whole that whole challenge with with Salesforce is Coca Cola. Marta was the director of e commerce What does she do? They became a digital first sales organization because she went She tackled every single issue point by point by point. What do you do? You don't cut commissions with, you know, with, with the state with the sales team, you give them more commission or you give them credit for, you know, for this sale to them. So, if they took they took the paycheck issue off the table, and guess what point one buyer number two, what they did was they went through this entire process where they looked at everything, the cost of customer acquisition, how much time it was taking a rep to go out, go to 10 different distributors every single day, take the same order, come back in, key it into the you know, to the automated system, or you know, call it in half sales kind of kid and so on so forth. That came out to like maybe an average like 50 bucks. 50 bucks. A few bucks in order, if you will, that was the overhead for the Salesforce savarna went to work. And she found that they could digitize the process two things, they could drive that 50 bucks down like two or three, and they can empower the contact center to offload and take away all the administrative stuff that the sales team was doing. And once they did that the upside to the sales team was okay now would you rather spend your day doing paperwork and facts or data entry? Or would you rather spend a calling and customers the you know better than anybody else? And getting to do more business with our because now you're freed up from this administrative stuff? So the thing

Unknown Speaker : 36:42

is, that's what I say the whole point of b2b e commerce is that so you can sales reps can actually sell instead of taking orders or talking to people about things that they could easily just go in and key in themselves. You know, the companies that I've talked to, they call it different things but exactly what you said mark, it's like They incentivize their sales scenes by calling them like digitization bonuses or innovation bonuses to switch over to their new ways of doing things and then they all ended up being very happy. You know, because yes,

Unknown Speaker : 37:13

I mean, so you know, we've done we've done we've done multiple stories over the years about the whole issue of Salesforce buy in and it comes down to what's the first thing you attack when you're trying to convince the Salesforce that this ecommerce thing is going to be a benefit and not a drawback to them which is take the compensation table off the issue off the table I should say make it a non issue and that mean Guess what? half your battle is one right single there and there's more companies beginning to address that. But the ones that do that first they're the ones that tell us they they they're able to kind of get company wide by and fast track that because Okay, first it was the CEO gets it. But now this the Salesforce Guys, no, not the vendor, but the sales team, if you will. And the VP Director in Charge sales. Now they're happy with because they took the compensation first thing dealt with it made people happy. Now we can move on to the rest of kind of figuring out the process here, huge Roadblock, if you fix it right away, makes your life and b2b commerce much, much easier. And

Unknown Speaker : 38:25

so how I think actually that someone you know, whether it's the VP of sales, or maybe it's the CEO, whoever's got some buy in from the sales team should be involved in the projects. And I actually, you know, I'm thinking about a prospect that we have right now where I'm concerned because the more I think about it, the more it's like, okay, even if we solve a technology problem, I'm not sure it's going to be successful for them because the salespeople aren't involved enough to make sure that what's being built is actually solving the needs of their problems. So what do you think about that in terms of how involved you should sales be in the actual you No features or scope or whatever you want to call it in terms of the projects, it seems to me it's like e commerce one on one, they should have a seat at the table.

Unknown Speaker : 39:09

You know, but politics, politics and organizations go all kinds of ways. So, I don't know, at for thinking organizations that should be a no brainer at a lot of these old guard companies big or small, where there's, you know, there's issues with protection and everything else who knows, but, but yeah, there. I mean, it's To me, it's just a no brainer that you know, everybody from from who's going to have a stake in the game should be at the table talking about what this takes should be so there was on the same page with this stuff,

Unknown Speaker : 39:39

you know, so I know there's no silver bullet, but just to try and simplify and help people let's say you're, you know, 100 million dollar distributor and you're struggling with e commerce or maybe you don't have e commerce, whatever it is. I you know, I think one of the first things that they should be doing and I'm curious to hear your thoughts is good. someone with experience let's call it the e commerce manager. Is that is that where you think these companies should start someone that can kind of like be cross department and bring in sales bring in the ER p folks and kind of like work within? I think there has to be that champion and someone that's going to kind of like bring everything together to make it successful. And how would you envision that in the simplest way for these kind of mid size smaller, better? Just

Unknown Speaker : 40:26

this the simplest, the simplest way is I think one step even before that, which is, okay. Take your time. And and, you know, maybe it's the VP of Marketing, maybe it's the CFO, maybe it's the the janitor, I don't know the thing is someplace, you know. In other words, select one go to individual, even pre ecommerce I'm talking about but somebody who is interested, passionate curious, loves new challenges and what they start with is just old fashion. homework, you know, call three platform vendors tell them you know, we're, we have no idea what this e commerce thing is. But we think we want to kind of start down the path. So just start by talking to three to three platform vendors. And the vendors themselves. Are these the guys who knows ecommerce better than the vendors who invented and do it for a living, get them to come in. And that's, you know, they will tell you what e commerce platforms do. They will tell you what there is do because they're trying to sell you something. The thing is, that is one aspect of homework. That is a pretty low hanging fruit. Go do that because that's the first part of the education process. Now number two, put together a wish list of well just even as this like ad hoc, what do you think this thing should do? We want to kind of do x we want to sell this we want to do that. Well then fine. Go out. And Nicola Are you competitors doing it? If they are, then break down what they're doing in a simple excel sheet, Google Doc, they have a shopping cart, they've got personalization, they promise that they'll deliver overnight. So, go benchmark the competition, see what they're doing. And then that becomes, you know, kind of a foundation for what you might want to do and then go out and kick the tires on. Well, I love Amazon, great, go and benchmark what they do. And, and, and that, or, more importantly, just go and spend some time kicking around Amazon business because they built a platform that has all the tools, all the bills, all the whistles that make up a pretty state of the art platform. Just go and do a little homework on that. So, you know, I tell companies quite a bit what's your first step? Even before you hire an e commerce champion? Find someone within the company who is motivated and go out and do some basic blocking and tackling and homework. So then you have some kind of idea of what it is you want to do, that you can take to the business people in the IT people and then you begin to kind of get down the road for finding that e commerce manager out there, wherever that he or she might be, could be from inside, who's gonna be the person who's gonna find it all together and get you off the dime and down the road. So

Unknown Speaker : 43:31

I love it. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker : 43:33

I completely agree with that. And you know, one of the other things too, that comes up in conversations I have is really just the, you have to ask the question like, do these companies talk with their customers, you know, enough, right? Because those customers are also going to feed you information on exactly what they see elsewhere what they need, what they would like on their wish list for you to do. Even the most dedicated cup. Summer, you know of your company, if you're kind of behind the times in tech, they're going to be happy to share that with you. And they'll say, well, gee, this is an issue for me, I can't do this on my mobile phone, or, you know, they'll just start telling you these things. And that's incredibly

Unknown Speaker : 44:14

valuable to you, you hit a magnificent key point right there, which is just go out and do a quick survey, and then put together maybe a small user group of customers that will tell you flat out good, bad, honest or otherwise, what it is they want, and and, yeah, yes, you're absolutely right. That's probably even more important, the step I just mentioned, which is go talk to your customers first. What do they want? At the end of day, it's all about them anyway, you know,

Unknown Speaker : 44:42

bingo. I mean, it just comes up every time. So I think everything you said is critically important. And I think our listeners really gonna be happy to hear that and this other piece, too, is something that I just see a lot. Yeah, no, these are so much that we could probably do 10 more podcasts. Something might want to bring you back, maybe like later in the year or after we see the real effects of COVID. And, you know, we can look back and see how the research came out. But one of the other things that we talked a little bit about the failures of data and the sales culture. So what are the other big chat? I mean, and you also talked about Amazon business is now you know, starting to mature a little bit, what do you think the biggest challenge or what like, you know, what do you think is gonna stop these distributors, manufacturers, I like to look at the ones that are, let's say, sub sub few hundred million dollars, I think once you're a billion dollar company, usually have the resources to kind of hire some of the best people and kind of fix these things.

Unknown Speaker : 45:46

The last myth, the last major stumbling block is basically, you know, selling, selling, selling many to many of you. Well, what I mean by that is, a lot of these companies, they're set up their whole, distribute System, or how they sell to whatever market they sell into is geared around selling big quantities to a limited number of customers they've known how to do with for quite some time. Long comes e commerce. It's, it's it's it could be low volume to high volume demand. So they're not used to that b2c is a lot of these other companies and b2b are not and because there is much more demand for this kind of service coming out of the COVID-19 stuff. A lot of companies are rushing to kind of figure out how do I transition my distribution centers into its two delivering day to overnight, two or three or four things first, the big pallet of things, if you will, so that is a huge stumbling block in the learning curve. A lot of companies are being hit right between the eyes with right here right now. But, you know, don't get it. You know, they'll get it. They'll turn it around or they won't, but they They'll get it and then eventually and then eventually through trial and error and just hard work and and what works and then what they have to kind of retool to get it right and on they go. Yeah, e commerce, e commerce again. It's e commerce again, the retail guys went through this. And they live to tell about it. So the b2b

Unknown Speaker : 47:18

Yeah, it's interesting. You say that because from what we've got a few merchant, you know, actual people, b2b operators on on the podcast. And it seems like there's kind of this trend where especially with Coronavirus, but I could see this just becoming the new trend, you know, of the coming decades. And I'm curious to hear what trends you think are coming but people don't necessarily want to worry about sitting on, you know, a PPO of 2000 you know, pieces of inventory like actually we just talked to a customer today that was a problem with Dick's Sporting Goods, because obviously Coronavirus, so you know people don't they might want the bulk pricing of Okay, I want to thousand units, but I don't want them all delivered I don't want to have to pay for them all at once. So I could see kind of this new functionality being developed around like almost like a b2b to subscription where it's like okay I subscribed the 2000 units a year, but I get you know, maybe 50 this month 100 next month, maybe I need 200 and summer and like you kind of you know, slowly spread out the inventory and I only have to pay as I use the inventory Do you see? Do you see anything like that because we're seeing kind of like this new emerging demand. The

Unknown Speaker : 48:31

thing is, you're talking about the the the price complexity issue which is a huge another huge thing with these guys. You know what? my takeaway there is, that is, you know, if it mean some you mean selling a book is one thing you know, but then selling something where it's by spec or by by the kinds of, of provisions you just mentioned, all of that is custom pricing that has to be built into The platform in a way that allows it to do that ties into bid management that ties into contract negotiation that ties into all kinds of buckets. And you know what? That is higher grade e commerce technology that is certainly out there in droves, if you will. But a company has to be ready for it. They've got to spend for it, because their customers want it. They've got to put it in. But you know, it's a, it's a very market driven thing. So it might not be the same MRO as it is in an aerospace, if you will. But yeah, price complexity. And love it. Another big challenge too, is open pricing versus behind the firewalls pricing, you know, well, we'll put our low end out there or a manufacturer's suggested retail price out there. And that's all we're going to do because, you know, our alchemy is behind the firewall where we give our best customers this kind of discount and, and we'll never put that out in public. Well guess what, you know Millennials are now the new purchasing managers. And guess what they want more open transparency versus closed down. We'll have to kind of see how the whole chips, how the whole filters out, eventually, who's going to win the procurement manager because that's what they want. They're paying the bills, and the companies have to adjust with customer demands. But for now, closed pricing versus open pricing. One more issue to kind of wrestle with, you know,

Unknown Speaker : 50:29

yeah. You know, I only have one other question, really, because I feel like we covered some of the things I was

Unknown Speaker : 50:36

asking already. I really don't. But it really

Unknown Speaker : 50:39

is. I'm always fascinated with the b2b b2c, you know, play and we've talked about that, you know, extensively here, but is there something else you think that b2b should be thinking about that's really exclusively b2c at this point. But it should be something like moves up on the agenda. It's like well, wait a minute, I could apply that. I'm Not quite sure what the answer would be just kind of curious what you think.

Unknown Speaker : 51:03

I think it comes down to this, I think another stumbling block. And

Unknown Speaker : 51:13

here's another example, if you will. There is, you know, there aren't a lot of specialty recruiters and e commerce but there's a guy who I've known for many, many years name's Harry joiner. Harry's a wonderful guy

Unknown Speaker : 51:24

Eric has given me I've gotten two jobs to Harry either very Yeah.

Unknown Speaker : 51:27

So you know, very hairy, but very well. You know, Harry told me about, you know, he does a lot of you know, he does a lot of b2b at the same time b2c and for instance, what's unique to be to be in the b2b world, you have to understand the customer demand. And the touch points for not just one channel, but four to five. That means, if you think of a river, going upstream with all kinds of tributaries that branch off and all kinds of different ways, you've got to figure that out. And that is if you figure it out. you've, you've got you. That's the enchilada you're there. But guess what? That is hard, that is fragmented. And that takes a unique skill set for a CMO and b2b, to figure that out. Because if you're going to drive, whole digital commerce across all these buckets, and all these audiences, blah, and so on and so forth, you've got to figure out at the end of the day, what does the customer want. And it's not just the site customer. It's the procurement marketplace. EDR e procurement, private network individual, that's a whole bucket full of touch points, but you got to figure it out, because that's how people come to your site. And if you know them, and serve them, and bring them back with a good experience, then you've got a viable success or sustainable long term business and these guys will figure it out. Retail the b2b world to some

Unknown Speaker : 52:57

excellent and I love her on the way we get Get the

Unknown Speaker : 53:01

podcast.

Unknown Speaker : 53:02

Guys. I can't jump on another call here. But this has been very, very fun. Yeah, thank you so much for having for having me. This is

Unknown Speaker : 53:10

great having here today. Yeah, this has been really, really enlightening. So I just want to mention for listeners to come back for episode nine, we got David from 1024. From slatwall they actually have a kind of a lesser known not one of the big name platforms, they do a lot of b2b commerce they actually develop their own platform. So we're going to get talked to one of our, you know, platform individuals on the next episode, but But uh, but mark, thanks so much. Yeah, this was this was amazing. I, my head's turning just from thinking about all this stuff.

Unknown Speaker : 53:43

No, thanks, guys. I really appreciate the opportunity. I'd love to kind of do it again. In the meantime, I will get you those two names. I promise they'd be actually Great.

Unknown Speaker : 53:54

Thanks, guys. Thank you so much.