Guest Post: Updated August 2025 – Paper order forms, faxes, and even old-fashioned phone calls still tend to dominate the wholesale sales process. While B2B is way behind B2C, the move to digital commerce is underway and accelerating. This is precisely why ecommerce platforms that specialize in delivering B2B tools, features, and functionality (like Optimizely) are seeing such rapid growth.
A Gartner report examines the rapid move toward B2B digital enablement and a key finding is that buying decisions and the actual purchases are no longer being driven by sales reps, as online ordering surges. In fact, at the time of the study, only 17% of the wholesale purchase journey was attributed to sales rep interactions and, among millennials, fully 44% said they prefer no sales rep interaction at all when making buying decisions.
This quote from the report struck me as particularly important. “As baby boomers retire, and millennials mature into key decision-making positions, a digital-first buying posture will become the norm. Further, we expect the acute spike in digital buying during the COVID-19 pandemic to have sustained influence on customer comfort with digital learning and buying.”
Retail ecommerce has exploded and B2B is finally starting to catch up. Smart B2B businesses are adopting a “digital-first” stance and considering an app as a logical extension of their online wholesale ordering platforms. Increasingly, wholesale buyers expect an app, when they start working with a new vendor.
