Suppliers take the lead in ecommerce

Suppliers are taking the initiative when it comes to business-to-business ecommerce.

Suppliers are taking the initiative when it comes to business-to-business ecommerce.

A study by Total Research shows that of those surveyed, 46 per cent of the major UK suppliers now have ecommerce solutions in place in order to sell more efficiently to their new business customers. This is almost double the number who had fully operational ecommerce solutions in March.

A further 20 per cent said they were now using e-procurement solutions to sell to their customers, while only 12 per cent said that they were participating in online exchanges.

The low participation in exchanges is surprising given the fact that exchanges and e-markets are currently enjoying significant media and industry attention, dwarfing that afforded to e-procurement software solutions.

Over one third of suppliers who had adopted ecommerce or e-procurement said that their main driver was being invited to take part in customers' initiatives.

In other words, they needed to adopt the same method of electronic commerce to continue to sell to their customers.