5 Takeaways from B2B Online Orlando 2022
Major trends from one of the leading B2B ecommerce conferences.
Two weeks ago, a team from Znode attended, sponsored, and spoke at B2BOnline Orlando, one of the leading B2B ecommerce trade shows in North America. With an agenda dictated by leaders in the industry, the most disruptive digital and ecommerce content, B2B Online, is designed to give merchants actionable insights to grow their businesses. Fantastic attendance at the fall event meant a slew of outstanding conversations with B2B ecommerce practitioners and partners. Tom Flierl, Znode VP of Sales and Marketing, delivered a presentation on Demystifying B2B Ecommerce, making sense of the buzzwords and noise surrounding the industry. With so many great discussions and presentations occurring, here are the top takeaways from the B2B ecommerce conference:
- Speed to market was a hot topic. Merchants utilizing monolithic ecommerce platforms are frustrated with the ability to quickly get to market to support new business units, brands, products, etc. Many merchants realize digital commerce speed to market can be the major differentiator in an ecommerce strategy.
- Marketplaces are HOT, but still not universally understood. “Marketplace” fulfills the old cliche, “Ask ten people for a definition and get ten different responses.” Some manufacturers are bolting on marketplace software solutions to manage unique catalogs and stores for channels, a feature that Znode can easily define and deliver natively. It is unclear if marketplaces are solving marketplace issues or being used to solve shortcomings in legacy ecommerce platforms.
- As monolithic ecommerce platforms pursue API-first architectures, merchants are becoming frustrated with re-platforming notices. On the other hand, Znode’s customers have been reaping the benefits of the platform’s existing API-first architecture.
- Product data normalization remains a challenge unsolved by technology. Distributors want it. Manufacturers would appreciate it. But the challenge remains. Data modeling within Znode is fully configurable and does not require the support of database resources.
- Companies want a center of commerce. It doesn’t matter if a merchant is pursuing B2C ecommerce for multiple brands or a sales portal for distributors, sales reps, and dealers to collaborate on transactions; centralized commerce is in demand.