Only 10% of manufacturer revenue comes from digital sales. Source: flickr.com

According to Ecommerce News, only 10% of manufacturer revenue currently comes from digital sales. Intershop released a survey report with more than 50 B2B manufacturers with a turnover of at least 250 million euros.

It found that at least 83% of them will increase their digitalization budget up to 20% this year. They understand that digitalization is important to expand and tap into new revenue streams (41%).

Nevertheless, most revenue is currently coming from direct sales and sales reps (54%) and distributors (26%). Only 8% are using e-commerce platforms, while 2% use Electronic Data Interchange to generate revenue.

According to research, B2B customers prefer digital interactions with manufacturers, self-service and making online purchases for big transactions and complex products. Selling more complex products online this way, will open up opportunities to increase customer lifetime value in aftermarket sales.

Yet, according to the report, many department heads in B2B companies (34%) do not support implementing e-commerce solutions because they don’t understand the value it creates. This means that resources and capital are allocated elsewhere.

In addition to the lack of c-level support, other challenges that hold manufacturers back to implement an e-commerce solution are channel conflicts (30%) and a lack of regional market knowledge (38%).

Channel conflicts arise when partners or distributors are alienated by e-commerce solutions. However, if they are integrated into the software, these conflicts can be easily dissolved. To create more regional market knowledge, manufacturers could develop buyer personas based on the demographics of a specific region.

We’ve reported that Shopify announced acquisition of influencer marketing startup.

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