Lance Owide Address the Latest B2B Analyst Report

As someone deeply immersed in the B2B ecommerce space, I find the recent Forrester Wave™: Commerce Solutions For B2B, Q2 2024 report to be misleading and not reflective of the B2B ecommerce landscape. 

Yes, I am biased, but I’m not alone in my criticism. 

So, what did they get wrong? 

B2B ecommerce is more than just a sales channel — it's a strategic shift in how manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers operate. 

Arbitrary category scoring doesn’t translate to how platforms help businesses meet their overall goals. The sum of the individual part rankings do not equal the value of the platform as a whole. 

A successful B2B ecommerce transformation hinges on achieving specific objectives that unlock the true potential of ecommerce:

• Streamlining Offline Processes: Automating manual processes to increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve productivity. 

• Enhancing Integration: Seamless integration with ERP, CRM, and other back-end systems ensures a unified operation, enabling real-time data synchronization and better decision-making.

• Improving Customer Experience: Offering a user-friendly, intuitive online purchasing experience that meets the high expectations of modern B2B buyers.

• Expanding Market Reach: Leveraging the online platform to reach new markets and customers.

BigCommerce is helping thousands of B2B customers achieve these goals in their digital transformation.

• B2B Out-of-the-Box: We support B2B processes straight out of the box with quotes, invoices, buyer approval workflows, SKU grids, CSV uploads, quick reorder, requisition lists, sales team tooling, and more.

• Robust and Scalable APIs: Our APIs handle the complexity and scalability needed for B2B (hundreds of thousands of price lists, millions of SKUs, complex product configurations).

• Extensibility and Integrations: Our open SaaS architecture allows B2B businesses to leverage best-in-breed technologies and payment providers. 

• Multi-Channel: Power purchases for multiple brands, regions, and customer segments all from one BigCommerce back-end. Mixing and matching native Stencil front-end with headless storefronts.

Don’t take my word for it, head to our case studies to hear what hundreds of happy customers said about BigCommerce.

“We looked at a few platforms, Shopify Plus, Magento 2, and BigCommerce were all in the running,” said Joe Sharplin, Head of Design at AS Colour. “It was those two things, features and functionality, that really set BigCommerce apart from the pack and ultimately led us to replatform to BigCommerce.”

Do you agree with the report? Let’s discuss on LinkedIn!