Dive Brief:
- Research from marketing tech agency Verndale on digital commerce found cross-channel execution to be an issue for marketers, with only 25% of enterprise marketers and technologists surveyed saying they have well-conceived, comprehensive cross-channel commerce strategies.
- 45% of respondents to the survey said managing the IT platform was their biggest day-to-day commerce strategy challenge.
- 68% agreed that their company should update its digital commerce strategy before making significant investments in commerce platforms.
Dive Insight:
"Enterprises today must be laser focused on the customer journey if they want to succeed, and commerce is a critical part of that experience," Jeff Pratt, commerce experience practice director at Verndale, said in a statement. "There are a lot of organizations who feel they have checked the digital commerce box, but are just now finding their approach does not encompass all channels and often isn't delivering the value customers want and expect. 2016 will be the year that enterprises look to refine their digital commerce approaches and begin to see how successful execution can lead to big improvements to their bottom lines."
The Verndale research included both B2C and B2B companies. For the research commissioned by Verndale, Berg Research surveyed 120 executives from companies with 500 to 5000 employees and $50M to $1B in revenue involved in marketing and IT decision making.
While cross-channel commerce may primarily be a big challenge for B2C brands, the challenge may be coming to B2B as well. Recent research from Forrester found that B2B e-commerce is on the rise because B2B buyers are younger and more used to online transactions. In fact, the Forrester research found the U.S. B2B e-commerce market will reach $1.1 trillion by 2019, quadrupling the B2C e-commerce market.
"Younger generations have been faster to adopt e-commerce, and in many cases, they are driving adoption of B2B e-commerce," Chris Dalton, CEO at CloudCraze, an enterprise e-commerce software solution, told Marketing Dive. "Young professionals grew up using technology and shopping online, so B2B e-commerce is a natural extension of shopping in their personal lives."
