Strong outlook for B2B product sales in the US, including product ecommerce sales estimates for Amazon Business, Shopify, and BigCommerce.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
B2B product sales in the US represent a huge market that remains largely untapped by the usual ecommerce players. Potential growth remains significant, and we forecast strong B2B ecommerce growth, even in the face of difficult economic conditions.
By 2024, over $2 trillion in B2B product sales will be taking place over ecommerce websites. However, this will still represent only a small portion of overall US B2B product sales and just over a fifth of B2B electronic sales.
- US B2B ecommerce sales will reach $1.676 trillion this year and exceed $2 trillion by 2024. However, ecommerce’s share of B2B product sales will be only about 10% this year, and its share of B2B sales conducted electronically will be only about 20%.
- Ecommerce is the fastest-growing channel for B2B product sales. Overall, B2B is so massive that its growth generally follows the outlook for the US economy. However, there’s still room for the rapid expansion of B2B ecommerce. We forecast an 11.2% year-over-year (YoY) increase in B2B ecommerce sales in 2022, compared with the projected 3.7% growth in overall B2B product sales.
- B2B product sales on Amazon Business are doing well, but the marketplace remains a small player overall, as do others. Amazon will account for just 2.1% of the B2B ecommerce market this year, although that’ll be enough for it to claim a leading position among US third-party marketplaces. Direct first-party sales from supplier websites overwhelmingly dominate the B2B ecommerce ecosystem.
What Counts as B2B Ecommerce?
Product sales between businesses constitute one of the largest single contributors to US GDP on an annual basis. A substantial portion of these sales will transact electronically, but only a small portion will do so via an ecommerce website. This forecast includes three metrics for B2B sales, defined as such (nested from largest to smallest):
B2B product sales include the sale of physical products from one business to another, including all sales from manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers to other businesses.
B2B electronic sales are a subset of B2B product sales and include the electronic sale of physical products from one business to another that occurs over the internet via an electronic data interchange (EDI), web-based ecommerce sites, or other online systems, including orders placed online via any device, regardless of the method of payment or fulfillment.
B2B ecommerce sales are a subset of B2B electronic sales and include the sale of physical products from one business to another that occurs over the internet via an ecommerce site, including sales made directly on a supplier website or indirectly through third-party online stores like marketplaces. These include online orders placed via any device, regardless of the method of payment or fulfillment.
A Trillion-Dollar Market That Is Still Small by Comparison
B2B ecommerce sales will grow by a healthy 11.2% this year, reaching $1.676 trillion. Although macroeconomic conditions remain challenging, we expect B2B ecommerce sales to outperform the overall B2B market. That said, B2B ecommerce still plays a limited role in B2B transactions, and the room for growth is enormous.
Total B2B product sales will amount to an eyewatering $16.273 trillion in the US this year. To put that in context, the GDP of the entire US economy was $24.882 trillion as of Q2 2022, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Given that scale, ecommerce’s relatively small share of B2B product sales still adds up to a huge figure.
Ecommerce will make up only 10.3% of B2B product sales this year, but it’ll account for a much larger portion of B2B electronic sales. B2B has become increasingly digitized over the past few decades, and recently, the ecommerce portion of this digitization has been growing more quickly than the portion of sales conducted via e-procurement and EDI.
Last year, B2B electronic sales eclipsed nondigital B2B sales for the first time, and this year, electronic will account for 52.3% of the total market. Services like EDI have been the main driver of this transition, rather than ecommerce. Although EDI software and cloud-based solutions involve online transactions, the process is very different from buying and selling via an ecommerce platform.
EDI and e-procurement are by far the preferred routes for electronic B2B, even though ecommerce is growing more quickly. The nature, scale, and complexity of B2B interactions create challenges EDI services are designed to solve. Ecommerce generally doesn’t offer the kind of one-on-one document tracking capabilities EDI enables between partners, vendors, suppliers, and customers.
Digitization is now the norm across B2B transactions, but ecommerce has a lot of headroom for growth. Of the $8.508 trillion in B2B sales that will transact electronically this year, only about a fifth will happen via ecommerce sites. By 2026, this figure will have ticked up to nearly a quarter (24.8%).
This relatively small share is due partially to the fact that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) gravitate toward B2B ecommerce marketplaces. In contrast, larger enterprises rely more on EDI-facilitated direct relationships. But SMBs spend less than their larger counterparts do on B2B products.
B2B product sales growth is rapidly decelerating along with the rest of the US economy, but B2B ecommerce growth will remain robust. Last year, all of our B2B sales metrics grew by double digits, largely because of the overall B2B rebound from 2020’s pandemic-driven nadir. This year, however, only ecommerce will grow at a strong clip.
A similar trend will prevail for the next three years. We forecast B2B ecommerce will grow by at least 10% annually through 2025, even as overall B2B product sales growth rates decline into the low single digits.
B2B ecommerce will grow more quickly in part due to its lower base. Inflation also plays a role in the growth patterns reflected in this forecast. Nonetheless, B2B ecommerce sites are unequivocally filling a need, as demonstrated by consistently strong performances from the main players.
Third-party B2B ecommerce marketplaces are proving their utility as comprehensive service providers, particularly during a time of supply chain stress—and especially for cross-border interactions. These marketplaces help businesses connect their digital goods and services with partners and sellers and can be tailored to region-specific product and distribution needs. However, they still play only a limited role overall.
Amazon Business, Shopify, and BigCommerce Stake Their Claims in a Crowded Field
First-party sales via supplier websites account for the overwhelming majority of US B2B ecommerce. For perspective, three of the more well-known marketplaces—Amazon Business, Shopify, and BigCommerce—will collectively make up only 2.7% of B2B ecommerce site sales this year. However, all three have been growing more quickly than the overall market.
Amazon towers over its US competitors in B2B ecommerce, just as it does in retail—but at a much lower level. We forecast Amazon Business will generate $35.68 billion in product sales in 2022, which is 29.3% more than last year. This represents a deceleration for the service, which had been booming with YoY increases of more than 40% since our tracking began in 2017. Amazon continues to outperform its competitors, however, in terms of both volume growth and overall sales. Amazon Business will account for only 2.1% of B2B ecommerce this year, but this likely makes Amazon the largest US-based B2B marketplace.
Shopify and BigCommerce trail Amazon Business by a wide margin, although Shopify’s B2B business is booming. In a crowded and dispersed market that also includes large competitors like Alibaba and ThomasNet, Shopify and BigCommerce are trying to carve out a significant B2B position akin to Amazon’s. Neither will account for even 1.0% of B2B ecommerce sales this year, however.
Shopify is set to grow its B2B product sales by 23.5% this year and should maintain growth above 20% for at least the next two years. Shopify is relatively new to B2B, but the platform has recently undertaken a strategic shift and has begun emphasizing (and upgrading) its supply chain facilitation and fulfillment services. Shopify also acquired logistics firm Deliverr this year, which will buttress the company’s warehouse capacity and geographic reach.
Shopify and BigCommerce are heavily SMB-oriented, which may constrain their topline figures for now. By contrast, platforms like Alibaba and ThomasNet often serve larger enterprises, which contribute a disproportionately larger amount of B2B sales dollars. We don’t have B2B sales estimates beyond Amazon, Shopify, and BigCommerce, but we plan to expand our forecast in the coming years.
Despite Amazon’s strong position in B2B, its retail sales still constitute the core of its business. For context, Amazon’s retail gross merchandise value will approach $400 billion this year, which is more than 11 times its Amazon Business product sales. That said, the size of the B2B opportunity makes Amazon’s entire retail ecommerce enterprise seem relatively small.
Given that B2B electronic sales are already a multitrillion-dollar market, we expect companies like Amazon, Shopify, and BigCommerce to continue to invest heavily in their approach to B2B. The gap between B2B ecommerce and B2B electronic sales represents a potentially addressable market for these players, and the gap is huge.
What Does This Forecast Mean for My Industry?
Whether you’re in ecommerce, marketing, advertising, or tech, the amount of money transacting in the B2B electronic space is staggering by almost any measure. However, only a small portion of these sales are taking place over the kind of ecommerce websites most consumers are familiar with.
There’s market demand for more customer-friendly, ecommerce-style innovation. B2B buyers and sellers appear eager for options beyond cumbersome e-procurement and EDI systems. And many transactions haven’t even reached that degree of digitization yet either. There’s still much to be done.
B2B ecommerce is less heralded than consumer-facing ecommerce, but it far outstrips the retail market. B2B buyers will spend $625.73 billion more via ecommerce channels than retail buyers will this year. That gap will only increase over time, even as both metrics increase at a solid clip.
Retail ecommerce will account for 15.0% of total retail sales in the US this year, but B2B ecommerce will account for only 10.3% of the B2B product sales total. If B2B ecommerce merely caught up to its retail sibling in terms of share, that would mean $2.441 trillion in sales this year. The room for growth in this space is arguably unmatched anywhere.
The Highest-Profile Marketplace Players Are Still Small—There’s Plenty of Room for Disruption
The Highest-Profile Marketplace Players Are Still Small—There’s Plenty of Room for Disruption
Amazon will account for 37.8% of retail ecommerce sales in the US this year—but only 2.1% of B2B ecommerce. Moreover, its share of the total B2B electronic pie will be less than half a percentage point. No individual ecommerce marketplace has cracked the B2B code in a meaningful way yet. The field is ripe for innovation, and the potential rewards would be massive.
Digital self-service is in demand for the B2B buyer journey. Dealers and distributors want to be able to track orders, offer personalized pricing, and see real-time inventory. This is pushing B2B toward the kind of customer portals ecommerce marketplaces should be able to offer. Nonetheless, comprehensive solutions remain elusive.
More Digitization Is Needed
Nearly $8 trillion in B2B product sales will still take place over the phone, in person, or on physical paper this year. The proverbial handshake deal is alive and well in B2B, along with the full range of formal and informal contractual arrangements that predate the internet. As such, digital service providers have an enormous opportunity, well beyond just the ecommerce emphasized in this report. Even though electronic B2B sales now account for more than half of the total market, nondigital B2B sales are equal to a large national economy in their own right. Digital transformation in B2B product sales still has a long way to go.