Bachir Kassir, founder, MyTradeZone.com

“We know that 40% of B2B marketing budgets are spent on trade shows and that over 95% of marketers use social media content in their campaigns,” he says in his promotional material, adding: “So why is there no social network specifically dedicated to B2B trade?”

That’s where MyTradeZone fills the gap in B2B commerce, he adds.

“On MyTradeZone, each business can both market its products/services and source what it needs, all within the same platform,” he says.

Kassir notes that he founded and launched the site quietly several years ago, building a base of about 50,000 users through word-of-mouth.

A toolset with CRM and email marketing

But he recently publicized MyTradeZone’s official launch in a press release and is considering taking on investment partners to spur growth. He adds that he expects the site to begin generating revenue in the first quarter of next year.

MyTradeZone.com provides built-in features ranging from site search, product listings, and online video chats to email marketing and CRM software applications to help buyers and sellers find and build business relationships with particular types of trading partners.

It offers limited access to these features at no charge under its basic membership plan. Premium plans will provide the same features and higher site search rankings for monthly fees from $20 to $50 based on the volume of activity.

In addition, the top premium plan will let participants earn fees from online ads placed on the social network site. MyTradeZone will take a cut of those ad fees.

MyTradeZone.com does not operate as a conventional ecommerce marketplace hosting product and services sales transactions among participating buyers and sellers, who complete those transactions outside the networking site. But it will let users monetize business communities, such as by setting up industry organizations and charging membership fees through the Stripe online payments system. In that case, MyTradeZone will charge a fee based on a percentage of the membership fees.

Kassir says MyTradeZone has been gaining about 100 members daily — a figure he wants to grow to about 1,000.

To get there, he says he’ll continue to invest in “lots of business tools” available to members and offer premium membership deals to trade shows, business networking groups and trade associations. He adds that while he has mostly self-funded MyTradeZone, he may consider outside investors.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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Amazon Business already claims 6 million customers and $35 billion in annualized gross merchandise sales — and it launched just eight years ago. But market analysts figure it is far from reaching a sales plateau.

Colin Sebastian, an R.W. Baird & Co. investment analyst who has accurately forecasted Amazon Business’s sales growth in recent years, has projected $80 billion in gross sales, including many by third-party sellers, before the end of this decade.

2023 B2B Marketplace 500 Report

Analysis of the leading U.S. B2B ecommerce marketplaces. Includes over 20 charts, a downloadable excel spreadsheet listing the top 500 B2B Marketplaces in alpha order, with company name, marketplace industry and URL and the most detailed study of the U.S. manufacturing and distribution marketplace.

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Amazon Business leads a B2B marketplace charge

Many buyers say they purchase from Amazon Business. The marketplace reported in April that it had reached “roughly $35 billion” in annualized gross sales. Nice growth for a marketplace that launched in 2015.

60% of buyers do more than a quarter of their purchasing on Amazon Business, a Digital B2B Buyer Survey found. And 28% say they do more than half. But another 12% say they “don’t buy anything” on Amazon Business — and 29% say they buy on other marketplaces.

Amazon Business is the dominant marketplace, the industry’s most influential marketplace, and by far the biggest, accounting for about one transaction of every four, Digital Commerce 360 projects.

Meanwhile, Amazon is also No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the top 100 online marketplaces. Amazon ranks No. 1 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by web sales.

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More Charts & Data Stories

Check back soon for more Charts & Data Stories, like our weekly B2B infographics. Here’s last week’s. We add new content regularly. 

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Dan Lewis, CEO, Convoy Inc.

“We are in the middle of a massive freight recession and a contraction in the capital markets,” Lewis said in a memo to employees, whose ranks had been slashed to about 500 from a peak of 1,500 a year ago.

Launched in 2015 under the leadership of Lewis, a former Amazon.com Inc. executive — and operating with financial backing from such investor as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates — Convoy racked up a client base including such companies as The Home Depot, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch.

But largely because of post-pandemic drop in demand and a challenging investment market, Lewis said Convoy had spent the last several months exploring alternatives, including possible acquirers to maintain its operations.

“Alongside this unprecedent freight market collapse, the dramatic monetary tightening we’ve seen over the past 18 months has dramatically dampened investment appetite,” he said, adding: “M&A activity has shrunk substantially, and most logical strategic acquirers of Convoy are also suffering from the freight market collapse, making the deal that much harder. The perfect storm.”

Mike Brown, general partner of investment firm Bowery Capital, commented in an email to DC360 that Bowery’s  tracking of fundraising data for B2B marketplaces, in general, shows the quantity and monetary value of financings is down significantly.

He suggested that “a macro takeaway” regarding investments in B2B marketplaces “is the cyclicity of the business and difficulty of the business model (including low take rates, high servicing costs, and tough multiples) which we think will scare a lot of venture dollars away.”

Bloomberg News reported yesterday that Convoy is one of many logistics startups hurt by falling prices and demand for shipping along with a downturn in venture capital fundraising. Bloomberg noted that Flexport Inc. and Seattle-based warehousing startup Flexe Inc. have had to lay off workers as demand fell from pandemic highs.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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“Our transformation focus is enhancing our digital offering, which is another way that we can more effectively connect our customers and suppliers to grow their businesses collectively and profitably,” CEO Sandy Douglas told analysts on a recent year-end earnings call. “Digital transformation is the key enabler to fully activate the commercial opportunities in our ecosystem, opportunities that many of the large retail chains are activating now.”

United Natural Foods makes a digital transformation push

In the past two years, United Natural Foods has hired Louis Martin to the newly created position of chief digital and transformation officer. It also opened Marketplace by UNFI, a B2B marketplace.

But at least in fiscal 2023, the digital efforts have yet to take full effect. United Natural Foods does not break out ecommerce sales. But for the fiscal year ended July 29, the distributor’s other sales were flat at $2.253 billion. That compares with $2.183 billion in fiscal 2022. That includes international customers outside of Canada, foodservice, ecommerce, the military, and other channels.

In comparison, total sales grew to $30.27 billion. That’s up 4.6% in fiscal 2023 from $28.92 billion in fiscal 2022. Net income was $24 million. That compares with $248 million in the prior fiscal year.

In fiscal 2023, United Natural Foods pumped $290 million in overhauling its distribution center operations and other technology, according to the company’s just-filed annual report. In fiscal 2024, United Natural Foods plans to infuse another $400 million into its ongoing digital transformation. It wants to “automate, optimize and expand our distribution network, and finance our technology platform investments,” the company says.

A big part of United Natural Foods’ major spending on better technology and operations is efficiency. It gives its 30,000 grocers faster and easier access to ordering and receiving orders, Douglas told investors.

“Our newest value-added supplier program, UNFI Insights, provides suppliers with granular understanding of sell-through data across natural and conventional channels directly through the myunfi.com supplier portal,” he told analysts, according to a transcript from SeekingAlpha.com.

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GE Renewable Energy has launched a B2B marketplace featuring 100,000 products from more than 30 sellers. The Renewable energy division is a part of GE Vernona, which operates and services 54,000 wind turbines and 7,000 gas turbines worldwide.

GE B2B marketplace

The available inventory includes wind turbine products from GE and other original equipment manufacturers. Specifically, the GE B2B marketplace specializes in onshore wind spare parts, including parts for all major wind turbines and additional items such as tooling, safety gear and office supplies.

Digital features are available on the marketplace tools for payments, securing financing, cashflow management and invoicing among others.

“We’re excited to launch this expanded online platform,” says GE Verona chief commercial officer Uzair Memon. “We’ve heard a lot of feedback from our customer base that it would help them to be able to access both GE and other OEM parts all in one location.”

GE Renewable Energy says it is a $16 billion business that operates in 80 countries. Its products and services include onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, utility-scale solar programs.

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“Behind the growth of these businesses are millions of businesses selling through marketplace and drop-shipping platforms,” Mirakl says. “Brands and retailers have embraced these platforms as new sales channels, using them as a cost-effective strategy to reach a wider audience and maintain customer loyalty.”

Marketplace and drop-shipping platforms

Mirakl provides ecommerce technology that enables companies to host marketplace platforms that include the option for merchants to drop-ship orders from their supplies directly to their customers. It also provides technology and services for onboarding marketplace sellers with their product catalogs.

Mirakl analyzed the performance of 65,000 sellers and suppliers on Mirakl-powered marketplace and drop-shipping platforms for the 24-month period between the second quarter of 2021 and Q2 of 2023, accounting for 125 million SKUs and nearly $5 billion in the value of annual gross merchandise volume. Mirakl says that brands account for 53% of businesses in its global network of over 65,000 sellers and suppliers. Retailers account for 15%, and marketplace native sellers account for 32%.

In addition, Mirakl surveyed 1,500 marketplace sellers of various sizes in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain in last year’s fourth quarter to learn about their ecommerce priorities and challenges.

2023 B2B Marketplace 500 Report

Analysis of the leading U.S. B2B ecommerce marketplaces. Includes over 20 charts, a downloadable excel spreadsheet listing the top 500 B2B Marketplaces in alpha order, with company name, marketplace industry and URL and the most detailed study of the U.S. manufacturing and distribution marketplace.

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Focusing on customers, brand awareness and profits

Mirakl found that the number of businesses that began selling on marketplaces in 2022 increased by 31% over the previous year. It says 53% of marketplace sellers surveyed are selling on more marketplaces than a year ago. Also, 62% plan to expand their presence across additional marketplaces in the next 12 months.

Mirakl identified the top 3 reasons businesses choose to sell on marketplace and drop-shipping platforms:

• Reaching new customers.
• Boosting profitability.
• Strengthening brand awareness.

Mirakl also found:

• 56% of businesses sell on more than two marketplaces and drop-ship platforms.
• Sellers cited website traffic, product categories, commission rates, the seller’s online interface and ease of use as the most crucial things they consider when choosing a marketplace as a sales outlet.
• 43% of marketplace merchants prefer to sell on curated marketplaces specializing in specific product categories. Meanwhile, 57% prefer general marketplaces.
• The average commission fee enterprise marketplaces charged in 2022 was 14.1% of transaction value.
• Marketplace sellers handle 99.8% of customer service inquiries without help from marketplace operators.

Brands gain marketplace confidence

Mirakl also notes that, on average, companies take 23 days to onboard marketplace sellers and generate their first sale on a Mirakl-powered marketplace or drop-shipping platform. For the fastest 25% of sellers, the time from initial onboarding to the first sale was four days.

Mirakl says the average 2022 sales volume for suppliers was $146,016.

To help companies sell through multiple marketplace and drop-ship platforms, Mirakl’s Connect platform provides application programming interfaces, or APIs, and pre-built technology connectors designed to assist sellers in listing and managing products.

Helping to drive up marketplace activity is a new level of confidence among brands in selling through marketplaces managed by other companies and featuring large numbers of sellers, the report says.

“In the past, brands were hesitant to sell on marketplaces, fearing brand dilution or loss of brand control,” Mirakl says.

But as marketplaces mature, they’re offering sellers greater control over wholesale activity, from pricing to product positioning, the report says.

“A platform strategy isn’t as simple as listing items on marketplace and drop-ship platforms. Sellers can take different approaches to build momentum,” Fareeha Ali, Mirakl’s director of strategy and market intelligence, says in a Mirakl blog. “According to the report, roughly half of companies market their entire product assortment on marketplaces. A quarter of sellers limit their platform offering to a small subset of their full product catalog, while 8% of sellers have no overlap between marketplace and owned channels — developing an exclusive offering for their marketplace partnerships.”

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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The Global B2B Buyer Behavior Report, which surveyed 1,006 buyers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, found that three-quarters of them purchased online but cited concerns about accurate pricing, web page load times and customer support, among other issues. The survey was conducted for ecommerce technology vendor BigCommerce in May by the Price Intelligently data research unit of Paddle, an online payments technology provider.

“The No. 1 reason B2B buyers abandoned their carts was because of technical issues faced at checkout,” the report says. Survey respondents said their main concern about checkout was viewing online displays of complete and accurate pricing.

Global B2B Buyer Behavior Report findings

The report asserts that B2B and retail ecommerce activity is blending among many buyers. This results in more B2B buyers expecting the ease of online shopping they’ve become accustomed to on online retail sites and marketplaces.

The report provides survey results separately for buyers in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. Some of the report’s notable findings include that, compared with U.K. and Australian B2B buyers, U.S. buyers rely more on online marketplaces to find products. Another notable finding is that 42% of all survey respondents say they still rely on printed paper catalogs to discover products. In addition, the report notes that the B2B purchasing and checkout processes are complicated, requiring B2B ecommerce sites to provide the online shopping and checkout experiences B2B buyers require.

“The way B2B buyers shop is changing, and B2B merchants need to adapt,” Lance Owide, general manager of B2B at BigCommerce, says in a statement about the report. “Buyers are turning to online channels to research, compare and purchase products.”

Following are the survey results for the percentages of U.S. buyers regarding how they discover products, their expected shopping experience, and the checkout process. (Percentages refer to the percentage of respondents.)

How U.S. B2B buyers discover products:

• 66% — Internet search.
• 58% — Online marketplaces.
• 42% — Product catalog (printed paper).
• 42% — Industry association.
• 35% — Online ads.
• 33% — Referrals.
• 29% — Industry publications.
• 24% — Physical ads.
• 23% — Social media ads.
• 23% — Trade shows.
• 14% — TV ads.

The purchasing channels U.S. B2B buyers use:

• 75% — Supplier website.
• 65% — B2B marketplace.
• 53% — In-store/at vendor’s warehouse
• 44% — Sales representative.
• 28% — Social media channels.

The top causes of abandoned carts for U.S. B2B buyers:

• 31% — Technical issues like inaccurate pricing.
• 23% — Lack of secure checkout.
• 17% — Shipping and delivery.
• 15% — Complicated checkout process.
• 8% — Lack of payment options.
• 6% — Lack of payment term options.

U.S. B2B buyers’ most-used payment methods:

• 80% — Credit card.
• 49% — Debit card.
• 39% — ACH/direct entry/direct debit.
• 32% — Third-party payment apps.
• 31% — Digital wallets.
• 28% — Purchase order invoicing.
• 21% — Electronic check.
• 18% — Physical check.
• 14% — Terms through third-party service.
• 10% — Cryptocurrency.

Top reasons that motivate U.S. B2B buyers to purchase online:

1. Customer ratings and reviews.
2. Promotions and marketing.
3. Peer recommendations.
4. Industry publications.
5. Competitors’ usage.
6. Trade events.

Top reasons U.S. B2B buyers purchase online:

1. Compare products and prices across competing vendors.
2. Customize orders; select products and quantities.
3. Save my purchase history; reorder; track orders.
4. Purchase anytime, anywhere.
5. Easier to know my total cost.
6. See live inventory availability and out-of-stock items.
7. Receive customized product suggestions based on search/purchase history.

Top pain points U.S. B2B buyers experience online:

1. Inaccurate pricing and shipping options.
2. Slow website load times.
3. Difficult to contact customer support.
4. Complicated checkout.
5. Poor search and navigation.
6. No real-time inventory information.
7. Data privacy concerns.
8. Lack of payment options.
9. Limited flexibility of pricing/discounting.

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Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

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“We hit the nail on the head identifying what this independent retail channel needed,” she said, “which was access to products and free returns.”

Anjarae Hamilton, head of retailer sales and account management, Faire Wholesale Inc.

The popularity of B2B marketplaces continues to grow. B2B marketplaces are the fastest-growing segment of B2B ecommerce, according to Digital Commerce 360’s 2023 B2B Ecommerce Market Report. B2B marketplace sales exploded to $112.0 billion in 2022, up 100% from 2021. They grew five times faster than B2B ecommerce revenue overall, according to the report.

In a March 2022 Digital Commerce 360 survey, 35% of B2B buyers said they did at least half their purchasing through online marketplaces.

Online wholesale marketplace connects retailers and brands online

Faire connects retailers with brands online. Founded in 2017, the B2B marketplace offers retailers 60-day payment terms, free freight and free returns. It previously charged a 25% commission on each transaction, but recently reduced that to 15% in May 2023, Hamilton said.

“We’re charging a one-time $10 new customer fee.” Faire also charges a 1.9% + $0.30 payment processing fee for 60-day payouts, 2.4% + $0.30 for 30-day payouts, and 3.5% + $0.30 payment processing fee for next-day payouts.

The marketplace continues to evolve and improve the features and capabilities it gives retailers and brands, Hamilton said. It learned there was room for improvement for retailers buying products using multiple buyers, Hamilton said.

“We learned by talking to retailers with multiple locations and multiple buyers that they were sharing Faire logins and passwords so more than one person could log in,” Hamilton told Digital Commerce 360 at the RICE convention in Chicago. “[One retailer] told us they posted a card up in the office with that information. We learned that upwards of 60% of buyers for the retailers that work with Faire didn’t have direct access, or it was complicated [for buyers] to access Faire.com because we didn’t have multi-buyer support. So we developed and built out [changes] and saw what resonated and launched it.”

2023 B2B Marketplace 500 Report

Analysis of the leading U.S. B2B ecommerce marketplaces. Includes over 20 charts, a downloadable excel spreadsheet listing the top 500 B2B Marketplaces in alpha order, with company name, marketplace industry and URL and the most detailed study of the U.S. manufacturing and distribution marketplace.

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As a result, account owners can now assign different permissions. The capability went live in Spring 2023 where account owners can allow multiple buyers access to its Faire dashboard. They can also delegate some buyers as capable of making complete purchases while others might be limited to adding items to cart without placing an order.

“Having these tools to help collaborate on these orders and the ability to customize it to fit how your team operates is helpful,” she said.

B2B online marketplace

Currently, Faire is ramping up its analytics so its Top Shop brands can see their return and cancellation rates, for example. It is also working on developing a mobile app for businesses to use, she said. Top Shop status is for brands that have earned at least a 4.5-star retailer rating, have frequent repeat orders from buyers, quick and problem-free fulfillment and a high merchandising score. A high merchandising score is determined by the number of products available in a brand’s shop, high-quality product photos and descriptions, promotions and a low order minimum.

Faire also recently improved its “Collections” tool, which is designed to help brands curate and streamline their products “into logical and inspirational groupings.” Retailers and brands can design their catalogs around seasons, trends, bestsellers and other trends. The tool also suggests relevant products to upsell and cross-sell.

Faire wholesale opportunities

Faire recently completed its summer virtual trade show, Faire Market, from July 18 to July 20. Nearly 53,000 retailers made a purchase, 26,000 brands received orders, and the average retailer ordered from five brands during the event.

Approximately 20% of brands that received orders were part of the wholesaler marketplace’s European brands in France, Germany and the U.K. About 5,600 of the nearly 53,000 participating retailers were located throughout Europe.

During the show, which Faire says was its largest to date, retailers placed about 290,000 orders.

Faire’s top search queries included:

• Back to school
• Freeze dried candy
• Halloween
• Barbie
• Fall

The most-searched products by country:

• U.S.: cocktail mixers
• Canada: bath bombs
• U.K.: dog treats
• France: drink syrups
• Germany: handmade mugs

Top purchased brand “value tags:”

• Made in USA
• Women-owned
• Handmade
• Not on Amazon
• Eco-friendly

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