Addressing supply chain shortages through smart e‑commerce

Going into 2025, the mantra for supply chains should be “expect the unexpected.”  

Remember the 2020 toilet paper shortages? Supermarket shelves were stripped of everyday essentials as people prepared for looming lockdowns, in fear that everyday items they needed would run out. 

That was one major disruption – one that reverberated for years, as ports remained backed up on and off due to quarantines. But that wasn’t the only major disruption to the supply chain. From conflict in Ukraine to damaging storms to infrastructure catastrophes (remember the Evergreen?), the supply chain has seen its fair share of hits.  

Today, as 2025 fast approaches, we cannot be complacent. We have to expect that supply chain shocks will hit the system, and we need to design our supply chain to better withstand these shocks. 

One key element of supply chain resiliency is smart supply chains: technology and tools that create a responsive, proactive supply chain, better able to nimbly respond to challenges.  

Supply chain shocks expose the flaws of just-in-time manufacturing 

Think back on ordering things online (or, gasp, by landline) ten to fifteen years ago. How long were delivery times back in the day? 1 week? 10 days? In season 1 of the Simpsons, it takes six months for Bart Simpson to receive his spy camera.  

Today, the expected delivery window is 2-3 days. Two key tools that make this possible are “just-in-time manufacturing and inventory” — where companies only make and store the minimum amount of product they need at any given time. This process reduces waste, and streamlines storage, but it relies on accurate forecasting and smooth supply chains.  

When Covid-19 hit, things ground to a halt. Immediately, products like toilet paper, milk, and soap, were in short supply. Even as production started back up, shortages lingered, as certain factories and ports would close intermittently.  

By relying too heavily on the “just in time” school of supply, businesses exposed themselves to a risk of undersupply when the supply chain was hit with shock.  

Here’s an example of how that worked.  

In 2019, it took five days for an order of soap to come from a factory in Shenzen to a port in Colombia. Buyers would place orders for soap, knowing it would take 5 days for the soap to arrive. They would keep enough soap on hand to fill their local orders, and reorder around 5-6 days before their supplies ran out.  

In 2021, because of intermittent shutdowns at ports and factories, it now takes 7-15 days for soap to arrive. The consequences? Struggling buyers, inconsistent delivery times. A bad B2B buying experience. 

Some orders come fast, others slow. As a result, there is sometimes an abundance of soap they cannot store, and other times they run very low, frustrating their end-customers.  

These soap buyers need a different model – a smart e-commerce model that can manage supply chain shortages.  

B2B complexity demands smart e-commerce  

B2B commerce has an additional dimension of complexity beyond B2C that exacerbates supply chain shortages.  

B2B customers often place bulk orders, repeat orders, or otherwise complicated orders that need to be delivered to multiple locations at varying times – it’s much more involved than “the customer bought 1 package and wants it in two days.”  

To address these complexities, B2B businesses need to adopt smart e-commerce tools to mitigate supply chain shortages.  

Smart e-commerce tools: GenAI and the supply chain  

What do we mean when we say “smart?” Clever, innovative, problem-solving, creative, resilient? All of the above? Really, “smart” seems to be “gets you out of a jam,” and “gives you a leg up.”  

What technology (or family of technology)” fits this bill? AI, particularly GenAI,  

In our recent AI report, we discovered that 81% of B2B businesses are already using GenAI in the workplace, with a key emphasis on automating tasks, analyzing data, and enhancing decision-making.  

Using this report, our CEO Sebastiaan Verhaar articulated a vision of “smart e-commerce” to address supply chain shortages. GenAI can map out ideal delivery routes, create new routes in response to supply chain snarls, identify alternate sources of goods when constrictions arise, provide more accurate sales forecasts, and even preemptively predict risks to the supply chain – alerting employees and providing suggestions before shortages hit.  

AI can go even further, being employed in tandem with predictive maintenance to help companies identify which parts of their supply chain may fail soon, giving them enough time to make repairs before true failure occurs. Companies can layer additional GAN (general adversarial network) modeling onto predictive maintenance to reduce the data needed to create effective predictive maintenance models – thus cutting down on costs.  

Used effectively, GenAI can be layered upon every link of the supply chain, speeding things up, reducing downtime, and reducing waste, offsetting the loss associated with abandoning “just-in-time commerce.”  

E-commerce integration 

Smart B2B e-commerce is e-commerce that integrates with your existing business logic, such as your ERP, PSP or PIM.  

Integrating your B2B e-commerce with your business logic gives you an unprecedented level of clarity into your supply chain, while also reducing the risk of order errors. In a time of supply chain shortages, B2B suppliers cannot afford order errors.  

ERP integration benefits include:  

• synced pricing, sales, and customer details directly with your web store, without having to update multiple systems.  

• Real-time inventory accuracy and transparency 

• Buyers can place orders in their local currencies, and have their product shipped to their customer address on their account – all without leaving their customer portal.  

This means that customers order more accurately, leading to fewer delays and returns.  

Palfinger 

Palfinger, a leader in industrial lifts, has a unique distribution model that has 30 sites and 5,000 sales outlets around the world. To provide support to over 130 countries, Palfinger has to quickly identify a massive range of parts and match the buyer, servicer, and closest supplier.  

To streamline this process, Palfinger deployed a multichannel distribution process with e-commerce as its linchpin. This automates the order and delivery of parts, matching buyer to supplier once an order has been placed. This has ensured timely delivery, reduced order errors, and increased customer satisfaction.  

Conclusion 

Supply chain challenges aren’t going anywhere. As much as we’d love to imagine that our logistics will hum along without delay or surprise, the reality is that there will always be a shock – be it a small hiccup like a downed power line, or a large challenge like a closed port – that we need to be prepared for. 

The solution is to expect the unexpected. Prepare for the unknown by investing in resiliency and risk management tech. Smart e-commerce, built on integration and cutting-edge tech like GenAI, reduces the risks of supply chain shocks to your business, keeping you humming along even as the supply chain hits gridlock.