Success for Distributors in eCommerce

Distribution is in a period of disruption. Nowadays, the reality is fewer people want to call into a distributor but prefer the convenience of shopping online as they do for consumer items on Amazon. If you know what you want, why wouldn’t you want to be able to easily login and reorder or quickly find an item and buy it online versus calling someone and going through a more time consuming manual process? I am passionate about this topic because I firmly believe that companies that do not go all in on eCommerce in the distribution space will eventually go the way of the dodo. You have seen this already happen in retail because the complexity of retail eCommerce is much simpler and more companies were able to convert their business online. B2B eCommerce is much more complex so this shift is happening more slowly but it will happen. I predict by 2025 you will see the same shifts happening in retail in which companies that didn’t go all in with eCommerce will be left behind. 2025 seems far away but we are now almost at 2020 and I remember all the 2020 stats that are basically here now. Why haven’t companies gone all in? Well, it’s very complex to build a successful distribution eCommerce site and most companies simply do not know what to do or even have the talent to manage such projects. I think most companies realize the importance but simply don’t know where to start or how to execute it. As someone who has worked with many distributors, here are my tips to be successful in distribution eCommerce that will help you get it right. Select the Right Platform: I see so many distributors on platforms I have never heard of or simply that are just not getting it done. There are many platforms you can get up and running on at a low cost but not many of them will scale as you grow. You need a platform that you can scale with and grow with that doesn’t need to be replaced in a few years. This typically means the platform has a strong core functionality but also can be extended and improved easily. No platform is going to do everything you need out of the box, it is the customizations that will make you unique. Magento is winning this battle in many areas in B2B because it’s the only major platform that is relatively affordable but can scale for almost any distributor and complexity with a massive developer community to hire from. I also recommend looking into BigCommerce. BigCommerce is very underrated in B2B and you can get up and running with BigCommerce very quickly at a reasonable cost. I highly recommend going with a proven platform that has a large community of developers, agencies, and third-party extensions. The platform is only going to do part of what you need, the third party apps and customizations are where the costs come into play and if no one knows the platform you are going to spend an arm and a leg trying to customize it.