In the past, the feelings were warranted. B2B companies were often tasked with developing proprietary e-commerce programs in order to compete, a highly expensive endeavor, and just one of the many reasons distributors opted out.
Bob DeStefano, a B2B online strategist and president of SVM E-Marketing Solutions, says buying into e-commerce is no longer optional. Although he advises distributors to take a “crawl, walk, run” approach to the process, he says it’s important for jan/san distributors to recognize that customers expect them to evolve with the times. That means not only embracing e-commerce for their own sake, but doing it well enough so that customers return to their sites again and again. |
