Top trends and pain points for e-commerce buying in 2024

Here’s a chilling stat: 91% of B2B buyers have at least one pain point that prevents them from completing an online order.

Sana Commerce commissioned Sapio research to survey global B2B buyers to understand the developing trends and pain points that currently plague the e-commerce space.

What we discovered was a significant acceleration of trends identified back in 2022 – online ordering has gone from a clear preference to an overwhelming majority of all orders. However, with e-commerce adoption has come a surge of frustration; order errors and stock inaccuracy continue to plague the e-commerce process.

Here is an example of how a poor B2B buying experience can harm both the buyer and supplier, leading to a loss of business on both ends, as detailed in our buyer report.

Chi Builders, a construction firm, had placed an order through a B2B web store from their supplier for flooring. This order would be used to complete installation for a client. However, due to delivery delays and inaccuracies, a 4-6 week promised delivery window came and went without any update – leaving Chi Builders behind schedule with no product for their client. Ultimately, this delay reflected poorly on both the buyer and supplier, and cost both parties money – Chi Builders had to expend resources to correct the issue, while the supplier lost out on future sales.

This is the risk of subpar B2B e-commerce across industries: broken relationships that lead to tarnished reputation, diminished sales, and hindered growth.

“In the wake of our latest B2B Buyers Report, it’s become undeniably clear that the manufacturing sector’s ecommerce platforms are not meeting the critical needs of their buyers,” said Sebastiaan Verhaar, CEO, Sana Commerce. “As manufacturing continues to push forward with digital transformation, accuracy and precision in ecommerce solutions are not just nice-to-have features but indispensable assets. More than any other, the manufacturing industry requires efficiency and resilience to thrive amidst constant challenges.”

Here are the key findings from our B2B buyer report.

Digital transformation is a done deal (mostly)

Here’s the bottom line: B2B buyers want to shop online.

The stats bear this out:

• 2 in 3 B2B buyers prefer to place orders online
• 79% prefer to place repeat orders online
• 58% of buyers prefer to place high value and complex orders online as opposed to an offline channel.

In response to this demand, manufacturing suppliers have focused on ramping up capacity to handle this surge of orders. This focus on capacity has unfortunately come at the expense of accuracy, leading to a buildup of order errors that have manufacturing buyers looking for the exits – or at least another supplier who can manage their order with transparency and accuracy.

In 2024, manufacturing suppliers’ differentiator can no longer be simply having an e-commerce store. When nearly all suppliers offer online ordering, the factors that will win over new business and keep existing buyers ordering again and again will be factors that address the current pain points that buyers are facing.

Buyers’ pain points with e-commerce

Our 2024 buyer report revealed a consistent set of pain points that are frustrating manufacturing buyers and causing them to look for new suppliers.

Order errors

For B2B buyers, one third of all orders placed online contained order errors. With buyers placing hundreds of orders per week, that is an inexcusable number of errors, particularly for manufacturing where accuracy and precision are critical. This has made it so that 68% of B2B buyers have felt put off from online ordering due to errors piling up.

Stock, pricing, and delivery inaccuracies

Data inaccuracy was another major concern, with 31%, 29% and 28% of buyers listing inaccuracies with delivery, pricing, and stock as pain points respectively. These inaccuracies are creating a lack of trust between buyers and suppliers, furthering the likelihood of buyers switching suppliers.

Unfriendly web stores

Every year, buyers’ expectations for UX and web store navigation go up. Unfortunately, web stores have not kept up with their buyers’ expectations. 28% of buyers listed lack of product information as a concern. Additional UX complaints included lack of payment options, slow checkout times, and general user-unfriendliness.

These major pain points that manufacturing buyers face do not exist in a vacuum; order errors are not independent of data inaccuracy nor are inadequate payment options divorced from user-unfriendliness. Our B2B buyer report makes it clear that these pain points stem from a lack of supplier transparency as well as a lack of customer journey prioritization. Ultimately, all these pain points lead to a lack of trust, harming the buyer-supplier relationship.

The real risk of poor e-commerce

Our research uncovered that 91% of B2B buyers have at least one pain point that prevents them from completing an online order. Additionally, 71% of buyers would be willing to switch to a supplier who offered a superior online experience. 60% would do so immediately after encountering multiple subpar online buying experiences.

What do manufacturing B2B buyers want?

The good news is that our research uncovered what buyers want in a B2B web store. 41% of buyers cited access to order status, history, and invoices as their primary want. 37% wanted a full product range catalog, while 36% wished for improved product search. Additionally, accurate information on stock, pricing, and delivery dates was listed as a must-have.

Discovering solutions – solving the B2B buyer transparency problem

These pain points and trends represent a snapshot in time of what buyers want. As our report lays out, the only constant in the B2B buying space is change – and B2B buyers are changing at surprising speeds.

Our report takes a critical look at the changing demands of the B2B buyer, the imperfect process of web store adoption, the benefits of effective digital transformation, and the importance of trust and visibility in furthering B2B sales.

But after discovery comes action. Brands can take steps to address the challenges listed in our report, in order to make the buying experience more transparent.