Vedanta Aluminum, India’s largest producer of aluminum, has launched Vedanta Metal Bazaar, which offers more than 750 products, the company says.

The new B2B site features artificial intelligence (AI)-based price discovery and other advanced features.

Additionally, the site will include:

• Product availability
• Online price discovery
• Long-term contracts
• Live shipment tracking
• Product documentation such as test certificates, bank guarantees, and letters of credit
• A selection of finance and logistics providers
• Mobile access
• Agreement Tool for streamlining complex negotiations.
• Unique QR-based product authenticity verification
• Quick access to India’s first-ever low carbon “green’” aluminum range, Restora
• Interaction with Vedanta’s quality, technical support, product application, engineering, and innovation departments through a dedicated module

Vedanta Aluminum manufacturer

“As one of the fastest growing economies in the world, aluminum is essential to India’s continued rise,” says Vedanta CEO John Slaven. “Vedanta Metal Bazaar offers a world-class experience to a rapidly progressing nation, democratizing access to top-quality aluminum by making it readily available to all sections,” he also added.

Vedanta Aluminum, a business of Vedanta Ltd, manufactures more than half of India’s aluminum with 2.29 million tons in fiscal 2023, the company says.

Submit a nomination

Nominate a game-changer in manufacturing, distributing or retailing for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards from Digital Commerce 360 and the B2B Ecommerce Association.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Indian aluminum manufacturer Vedanta hits the global market with a new ecommerce site appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Rob Saltiel, president and CEO, MRC Global Inc.

“Our revenue grew for a third straight year in 2023 to $3.4 billion, and we generated $181 million of operating cash flow, resulting in our lowest net debt level ever as a public company,” president and CEO Rob Saltiel said in a statement on the company’s fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Dec. 31.

MRC Global, which launched in 1921, emphasizes its global supply chain expertise and its “robust digital platform” for its ability to offer over 300,000 SKUs from over 8,500 suppliers for approximately 10,000 customers worldwide. Its ecommerce site, MRCGO, processes orders for products ranging from steel and polyethylene pipe to related valves and fittings.

In the fourth quarter, MRC reported a 12% year-over-year drop in total sales to $768 million. MRC said ecommerce accounted for 65.5% of U.S. orders and 53% worldwide. That’s up from 50.2% of worldwide orders in the year-earlier quarter.

Ecommerce drives a big share of sales

MRC didn’t break out the percentages of Q4 2023 U.S. of sales transacted online. Based on its reported figures for 2023 and 2022, Digital Commerce 360 estimates ecommerce accounted for about $340 million in Q4 2023 sales.

In its 2022 annual report, MRC said ecommerce accounted for 41% of total Q4 2022 revenue, or $356.3 million out of total sales of $869 million, while accounting for half of customer orders.

For the full year 2023, MRC said total sales grew 1% year over year to $3.41 billion. Saltiel noted on an earnings call today that, despite the drop in Q4 sales, “we maintain strong profit margins and cash generation that exceeded our expectations.”

He added, “We have seen a meaningful improvement in our backlog of new orders over the first few weeks of 2024. This gives us optimism that our business is stabilizing, and we expect to return to growth in the coming quarters.”

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, MRC reported:

• Gross profit of $153 million, down 3.2% from a year earlier. But a sharp drop in the cost of sales led to a gross profit margin of 20.0%. That’s up from 18.2% a year earlier.
• Net income of $21 million, unchanged.

For the full year, MRC reported:

• Gross profit of $690 million, up 13.1%.
• Net income of $114 million, up 52%.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s MRC Global report.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Submit a nomination

Nominate a game-changer in manufacturing, distributing or retailing. Submit your pick for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards from Digital Commerce 360 and the B2B Ecommerce Association.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

The post At pipe distributor MRC Global, U.S. orders are 65% digital appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The moral of the story: B2B marketplaces remain the fastest growing B2B digital sales channel and a key driver in how business organizations of all sizes are undergoing digital transformation, according to the newly published 2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report.

Consider these metrics about B2B marketplaces

• B2B marketplaces grew year over year nearly 100% in 2023. That’s up to $224.0 billion from $113 billion in 2022.
• B2B marketplaces last year accounted for 1.3% of all B2B sales.
• There are now 750 vertical industry marketplaces (and counting).
• Six in 10 B2B buyers are doing 26% or more of their B2B buying on Amazon Business.
• More than half of B2B buyers, or 59%, are conducting more than a quarter of their purchases on online marketplaces, according to a new survey of 103 B2B buyers.
• Amazon Business is the dominant marketplace, the industry’s most influential marketplace, and by far the biggest, accounting for about one transaction of every four, Digital Commerce 360 projects.
• Marketplace service provider Mirakl says the gross merchandise volume on the Mirakl Marketplace Platform, which client companies use for first-party and third-party ecommerce sales and drop-shipping, grew 50% year over year in 2023 to $8.6 billion.
• The rollout of these new marketplaces will continue in 2024, and the total number of B2B marketplaces could exceed 1,000 in as soon as two years, Digital Commerce 360 projects.

More Charts & Data Stories

Check back soon for more Charts & Data Stories, like our weekly B2B infographics. Here’s last week’s. We add new content regularly. 

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Marketplaces grow faster than other B2B digital sales channels appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Albert H. Nahmad, chairman and CEO, Watsco Inc.

“In many respects, we consider 2023 an exceptional year given the extraordinary performance during the two preceding years and considering the softer comparative market conditions that have followed,” he said today in a Q4 and full-year financial statement. “We achieved market share gains during a down market, scaled the adoption of Watsco’s technology-leading technology platforms, drove productivity gains, expanded our network.”

Nahmad added during an earnings call that he sees Watsco — which he noted has grown from $1 billion in annual revenue 20 years ago to over $7 billion today — doubling its current annual revenue over the long term.

‘We’re very ambitious; we always want to grow’

“We’re never satisfied — that’s part of our culture,” he said. “We’re very ambitious; we always want to grow.”

He added that changes in the HVAC industry, including more efficient HVAC systems and greater customer participation in improved digital commerce and fulfillment technology, is making for a prime growth opportunity.

“Markets are creating innovation for the first time in a long time — it’s exciting,” he said on the earnings call.

The company noted several 2023 performance metrics resulting from its customer-facing technology systems.

• Watsco ecommerce sales grew 5% year-over-year to $2.4 billion, to about 34% of total sales.
• Active ecommerce customers produced 50% less attrition than non-ecommerce users.
• The gross merchandise value of products sold on Watsco’s OnCallAir digital sales platform for contractors increased 28% to $1.2 billion, as quote volume expanded 14% to about 256,000 households.
• Watsco’s authenticated user community for HVAC Pro+ Mobile Apps expanded to approximately 55,000 users.

Nahmad also pointed to several digital technology investments Watsco has made in the past year.

• Pricing optimization software, providing analytics and insights on more than 200,000 SKUs that help Watsco “enhance competitiveness and improve margins.”
• Warehouse management and order fulfillment systems for accelerated order fulfillment and “faster and more reliable customer service.”
• Demand planning and inventory optimization tools to improve fulfillment rates and inventory turns.
• Logistics and operations software and expertise to facilitate more efficient product movement.

Watsco is ‘well-positioned’ to invest in growth

Going forward, executives said acquisitions will remain a key part of growth.

“Watsco remains well-positioned to invest in most any-sized opportunity to build further scale in the estimated $60 billion highly fragmented North American HVAC/R distribution market,” the company said.

Since 1989, Watsco has acquired 69 companies. Its three most recent acquisitions are:

• Capitol District Supply, acquired in March 2023. It generated 2023 revenue of about $13 million.
• Gateway Supply Co., acquired in September 2023, which generated 2023 revenue of $180 million.
• Commercial Specialists, acquired this month, generated 2023 revenue of about $13 million.

As Watsco grows through acquisition, it will seek to gain market share by brands in each market it enters, Nahmad said.

Watsco operates a distribution network with 692 North American locations serving over 125,000 contractors across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other markets in Latin America.

Watsco reported for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31:

• Total sales grew 1% year over year to a record $1.60 billion.
• Gross profit declined 4.4% to $414.16 million for a gross profit margin of 25.8%.
• Net income declined 37.8% to $97.74 million.

For the full year, Watsco reported:

• Watsco ecommerce sales grew 5% year-over-year to $2.4 billion.
• Watsco ecommerce represented about 34% of total sales.
• Total sales were slack at $7.28 billion, compared to $7.27 billion.
• Net income declined 9.9% to $634.14 million.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s Watsco report.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

The post Watsco’s 2023 ecommerce sales grow 5% to $2.4 billion appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Emily Newton

A smooth customs process is essential for getting ecommerce goods to their destinations in the expected time frames. However, standard customs forms are extremely detailed, with dozens of fields to fill. People are increasingly interested in how artificial intelligence (AI) could streamline things.

1. Completing Customs Forms More Efficiently

Even conscientious people make errors when providing information on customs documents. That might mean they put details into the wrong fields, use the wrong tariff codes to classify ecommerce documents, or make other mistakes, ultimately extending the time frames for parcels reaching their destinations or resulting in the packages getting returned to the senders.

Many optical character recognition tools have AI features to improve their functionality. People can use these options to pull data from electronic paperwork automatically and use it for customs forms.

Phlo Systems is a digital forwarder based in the United Kingdom working on a chatbot to fill out customs forms. Training is underway and responses have about an 80% accuracy rate, showing the solution’s potential. As of November 2023, the company’s CEO and founder expected to complete customs forms with the tool in three to six months.

Although AI can shorten the time necessary to complete customs forms, humans should always supervise the process and double-check the results. Well-trained algorithms are not perfect, so computing power and human oversight are an excellent combination to assist those dealing with exported products.

2. Linking Customer Purchases to Customs Form Data

Businesses may also expand the functionality of existing ChatGPT tools that bring AI to ecommerce, making them improve customs documents, too. Technology ecommerce brand Newegg released a customer-facing ChatGPT tool in July 2023 that suggests products for people wanting to build computers based on details they input about budget, performance requirements and other specifics.

The tool compiles all the options into a list people can review before checking out at the site. It is easy to imagine an accompanying AI product Newegg team members could use to populate customs forms based on what a customer ultimately purchases from the suggested list. Then, the items are more likely to be classified and described correctly on the customs forms. Tariff classifications determine duty rates and taxes on imports, making their accuracy critical.

Ecommerce leaders could also use AI to track trends that enable more accurate customs data. Perhaps a large percentage of overseas shoppers purchase a specific in-demand item and nothing else. AI might accelerate the process by automatically populating the product-specific customs form fields in such cases. Then, there is less to do because people only need to check the information that varies with each customer.

3. Stopping False Declarations and Counterfeit Goods

Possibilities also exist for customs agents to use AI tools to highlight abnormalities associated with illegal goods or items declared incorrectly. Artificial intelligence excels at processing large quantities of information and catching things humans would miss. Many banks use it to monitor for fraudulent transactions because it can detect those instances more accurately than people

If people make false declarations on customs documents, they typically do that to reduce their import tax and duty-related obligations. Many border patrol agents use artificial intelligence to assess which shipping containers to open for further inspection.

Some ships reach ports bearing 24,000 containers, making it impossible to inspect them all. However, the customs officials working at a Belgian port rely on predictive AI models to flag which ones to check. The algorithms make decisions based on customs declarations and data from goods previously requiring inspections.

Even so, illegal goods can slip past border agents, which may result in counterfeit products reaching ecommerce sites. More companies are responding by using or offering AI tools to combat these emerging circumstances.

One enterprise specializing in the luxury goods and sneaker markets built an artificial intelligence-driven product to compare photographs of legitimate items with those sold online. The software compares approximately 2,000 to 4,000 characteristics so consumers or retailers can feel more confident about authenticity.

Some ecommerce marketplaces could use counterfeit protection as a selling point to attract new customers. Suppose first-time visitors to a shopping website sees a banner informing them that all products above a specific monetary value receive anti-counterfeit screenings before getting shipped to recipients. Such a claim gives consumers peace of mind, particularly before buying high-value, unique or collector’s items.

Will Artificial Intelligence Improve Customs Processes?

AI for customs declarations and processing is still in the early stages, with decision-makers from many businesses still in the planning process. However, as more of them try real-world applications, artificial intelligence should make a bigger and lasting impact on paperwork and goods movement. The results could assist ecommerce companies with administrative tasks associated with import and export paperwork, plus support border patrol officials with spotting suspicious cargo or incorrectly declared products.

About the author:

Emily Newton reports on how technology disrupts industrial sectors. She’s also the editor-in-chief of Revolutionized, covering innovations in industry, construction, and more.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content. 

The post 3 ways AI transforms the ecommerce customs declaration process appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

And thought leaders, change agents and market leaders need to be recognized for their industry achievements.

That is the prime reason Digital Commerce 360 is partnering with the B2B eCommerce Association to announce the inaugural Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards.

B2B eCommerce Industry Awards

This new awards initiative aims to celebrate the achievements in B2B ecommerce and digital transformation excellence. It recognizes the efforts of manufacturers, distributors, B2B retailers and marketplaces changing the way organizations of all sizes will do business now and in the future.

The nomination process is now open for any organization to submit nominees they believe are taking the lead and driving the future of B2B digital commerce and transformation.

The categories include:

• Enterprise B2B ecommerce Manufacturer of the Year
• Enterprise B2B ecommerce Distributor of the Year
• Mid-Market B2B ecommerce Manufacturer of the Year
• Mid-Market B2B ecommerce Distributor of the Year
• B2B eCommerce Growth Award
• Best Newcomer Award
• B2B Marketplace of the Year
• B2B Retailer of the Year
• B2B Mobile Commerce Experience of the Year
• B2B Change Agent of the Year

The winners will be announced and recognized via Digital Commerce 360 webinar on June 12 at 1 pm CST.

The awards will be judged by an agnostic panel of B2B ecommerce professionals from various sectors within the industry, ensuring a fair and comprehensive evaluation of all entries, says B2B eCommerce Association director Brett Sinclair.

The judges include:

• Joe Albrecht
• Isaiah Bollinger
• Mark Brohan
• Joe Cicman
• Marta Dalton
• Paul do Forno
• Val DuVernet
• Chris Gee
• Jason Greenwood​
• Arno Ham
• Steven Javor
• Justin King
• Brooke Logan
• Lori McDonald
• Dean McElwee
• Tom McFadyen
• Lance Owide
• Brett Sinclair
• Helena Strahl​
• Mascha Tamarinof
• Marc Teulières
• Michael Vax​

“We are inviting entries from across regions, offering a platform for businesses to showcase their advancements and successes in the realm of B2B ecommerce,” Sinclair says. “This event marks a significant milestone in acknowledging the unique challenges and innovations within the B2B landscape.”

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Nominations for the Global B2B eCommerce Industry Awards are now open appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report

The 2024 B2B Market and Customer Experience Report provides a unique look into the latest trends and expert tips to weather major challenges, and a clear picture of what lies ahead for B2B ecommerce.

View Details

How big is the B2B ecommerce market in the US?

All in, B2B ecommerce grew multiple times faster than total U.S. business sales.

The overall business market for manufacturing and distribution ended the year in a deep freeze. In 2023, the combined sales of U.S. manufacturers and distribution companies were flat at $14.87 trillion. That’s in sharp contrast to how buyers and sellers ended 2022, when total B2B sales grew 15%.

What percentage of B2B sales come from ecommerce?

Overall, all the B2B digital sales channels posted healthy gains in 2023.

B2B ecommerce is now a significant mainstream sales channel with digital sales taking place on ecommerce sites, password-protected sites and apps growing 17% to about $2.1 trillion in 2023. That’s up from $1.95 trillion in 2022.

The takeaway for 2024 for B2B sellers of all sizes is that business buyers want an omnichannel — and digitally driven — purchasing experience. Customers prioritize companies who offer digital tools — officially putting the paper catalogs on the back burner. And if companies want to remain competitive and grow, they will need robust self-service options that users can opt into and a system that allows for a smooth and seamless experience.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post B2B ecommerce market: US sales top $2 trillion in 2023 appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

D.G. Macpherson, chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger Inc.

D.G. Macpherson, chairman and CEO, said on an earnings call today that the Endless Assortment business — which offers online sales without the full-service approach Grainger provides through its High-Touch Solutions via sales teams and Grainger.com — nonetheless expanded its presence last year with large as well as small and midsized customers. He added that Zoro was also updating its product assortment to improve what Grainger says had been an “unfavorable product mix” that led to a drop in Q4 gross profit margins.

W.W. Grainger Inc. is No. 11 in the Top 1000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s rankings of the largest online retailers in North America based on annual web sales.

Grainger online sales

“The Zoro team has progressed on their strategy, expanding their assortment, attracting new customers and improving B2B customer retention,” he said.

Zoro’s Q4 sales rose 2.3% year over year to $264 million. MonotaRo’s Q4 sales increased 7.8% to $438 million. Combined Endless Assortment Q4 sales increased 6.0% to over $700 million.

Grainger’s total sales increased in Q4 by 5.1% to $3.997 billion and for the full year by 8.2% to $16.5 billion.

Macpherson added that Zoro continued to focus on a strategy of presenting a personalized product assortment, assessing price competitiveness, and “proactively communicating delivery times to highlight where we are advantaged.”

Regarding Monotaro.com, Macpherson said “they seem stronger with enterprise customers [and] continue to expand with small and midsize customers and are gaining operating leverage as they ramp into their distribution center in Davos.”

He added, “In January, I had the opportunity to visit MonotaRo and I was able to see that MonotaRo was supported by a tight partnership between the U.S. supply chain organization and the Japanese counterparts.”

In Q4, Endless Assortment “growth was driven by B2B customers across the segment as well as enterprise customer growth at MonotaRo, which was partially offset by declining sales to non-core, consumer-like customers at Zoro,” Grainger said.

Zoro added about 2 million SKUs in 2023, ending the year with 13.1 million, an 18% increase. It also counted at year’s end 5.17 billion registered users; MonotaRo counted 9.02 million.

Expanding DC space 35%

Grainger also announced today plans to open a 1.2-million-square-foot distribution center this spring in the Houston suburb of Hockley, Texas. Grainger says the new facility will house more than 250,000 industrial supply items, ranging from power tools to power transmission equipment, and employ about 400 people following its 2026 opening.

The Texas facility will follow the launch of two other distribution centers in Pineville, North Carolina, which is scheduled to open later this year, and in Gresham, Oregon, scheduled for 2025. Overall, Grainger says it is adding 3.5 million square feet of warehouse space, a companywide increase of 35%.

“These latest investments will strengthen our promise to customers who count on us to provide next-day complete orders to keep their operations running,” Macpherson said on the earnings call.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports. Here’s last quarter’s W.W. Grainger report.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Grainger sees stronger sales ahead for its online-only businesses appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Nick Mehall, president and CEO, Republic National Distributing Co.

“A large and growing number of our customers are now embracing B2B ecommerce as a complementary vehicle to engage with us,” says Nick Mehall, president and CEO. He notes that the distributor’s ecommerce site, eRNDC, “has demonstrated significant market adoption over the past twelve months.”

Mehall notes that 2023 sales transacted through the eRNDC ecommerce platform reached $800 million, spurred by a 32% year-over-year increase in the number of monthly active online customers.

RNDC says its online customers in 21 states can shop among 6,700 brands, using such features as AI-powered site search, product recommendations and product assortments curated for local markets.

And RNDC expects the good times to continue.

Emily Xu, senior vice president of ecommerce, Republic National Distributing Co.

“Looking ahead to 2024, we are anticipating more customers will leverage the platform to discover products and brands,” says Emily Xu, senior vice president of ecommerce. “We are also seeing more suppliers incorporate B2B platforms like eRNDC as building blocks of their commercial strategy.”

Republic National ecommerce investments pay off

Mehall says RNDC has invested in its proprietary ecommerce platform over the last few years to “meet the demands and the complexity of our industry, and our results indicate our strategy is firmly taking hold.”

He adds: “By directly providing 24/7 access and making product information easily accessible to customers and our sales reps, we are bringing brands closer to customers. By offering order dashboards, invoices, and online payments, we also free up our sales team from some of the administrative tasks and give them more time to spend with customers.”

RNDC says it is also using its ecommerce platform to better understand how different types of customers shop for products.

In the past year, the distributor analyzed shopping behavior data collected on eRNDC to learn that account customers tend to search by category, with top search terms of tequila, bourbon and champagne.

It also learned that other customers RNDC defines as “off-premise” tend to search first by brands.

Xu says RNDC expects more ecommerce improvements to come.

“With the fast development in AI and machine learning, we are very excited to partner with our sales team, our suppliers, and our customers to continue evolving our platform to be the best collaborative ecommerce platform that seamlessly connects three tiers of the beverage alcohol industry,” she says.

Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, vice president of B2B and Market Research Development, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com and follow him on Twitter @markbrohan.

The post An alcoholic beverage distributor’s customers embrace B2B ecommerce appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

Schneider Electric became the victim of a ransomware attack on Jan. 17, it said. The company is a manufacturer and distributor of digital automation and energy management products and services for homes, buildings, data centers and various other industries

Schneider generates annual revenue of about $37 billion and has operations in 100 countries. The company says hackers breached the sustainability business division. As a result, operations will be offline until resuming on Jan. 31.

Schneider Electric ransomware attack

“From a recovery standpoint, Sustainability Business is performing remediation steps to ensure that business platforms will be restored to a secure environment,” the company says. “Teams are currently evaluating the operational capabilities of impacted systems with the expectation that access will resume in the next two business days.”

Schneider provided limited information on the data breach. It did, however, say the breach impacted some unidentified business records. “From a containment standpoint, as Sustainability Business is an autonomous entity operating its isolated network infrastructure, no other entity within the Schneider Electric group has been affected,” the company says. “From an impact assessment standpoint, the on-going investigation shows that data have been accessed. As more information becomes available, the Sustainability Business division of Schneider Electric will continue the dialogue directly with its impacted customers and will continue to provide information and assistance as relevant,” Schneider Electric also said.

The type of cyber hack used against Schneider was a cactus ransomware, according to trade publication Bleeping Computer. Cactus is a ransomware group that began targeting major companies starting in March 2023. Cactus generally leverages virtual private network devices to gain initial access, according to research firm Avertium and Kroll.

B2B manufacturers previously named cybersecurity as a top priority for 2024 in a survey from consulting firm BDO.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn and be the first to know when we publish Digital Commerce 360 B2B News content.

The post Data hackers take aim at Schneider Electric appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.