Huisman was already well-established as a provider of heavy construction equipment for the energy industry. But to better help its customers maintain their equipment in top shape and avoid any costly downtime, the family-owned company, founded in 1929, realized it needed to go digital — and in a way that was helpful to customers who were often out of internet access range.

Maaike de Rover, program manager, digitalization, Huisman

Going digital — enabling customers to order parts and service and view technical manuals from computer devices in remote locations at sea — makes Huisman’s products and services far more accessible and the company far more efficient and proactive in serving customers.

“The ultimate goal is to grow our business and stay relevant for our clients,” says de Rover, program manager, digitalization.

Moving toward predictive maintenance

Moreover, Huisman’s digital applications are putting its Services division into the position to “move from preventive maintenance to predictive maintenance,” she says, with online dashboards designed to alert customers when their equipment may be due for maintenance and new parts.

Headquartered in Schiedam, Netherlands, with worldwide production and service facilities, Huisman worked with digital agency Fenego to deploy the Intershop Commerce technology platform. Intershop, which launched its first ecommerce platform in 1992, “combines the functionality of a B2B shop with the user-friendly aesthetics of a B2C platform,” according to Martijn Reissenweber, director of Huisman Services.

But the new digital technology layout is “more DXP than just an ecommerce platform, it goes far beyond ecommerce,” says de Rover, using the letters for digital experience platform.

In addition, Huisman manages customer and financial data and product information with an Isah ERP system, a Windchill data management application, and Google Analytics. And it uses an image designing tool for displaying 3D product drawings.

To make the digital platform more useful for customers when outside of internet access, de Rover says Huisman worked with Intershop and Fenego to deploy the commerce technology as a progressive web application. That configuration lets customers continue to engage through various mobile devices with downloaded web content, including product and order details, account activity, and service records, even when they have poor or no internet access in remote sea locations, such as windfarm construction sites.

Vessel-mounted Huisman cranes at a windfarm construction site.

Engaging customers via myHuisman

Huisman’s digital strategy is to make it easier for its customers aboard vessels to order parts and technical services through the manufacturer’s new digital portal, myHuisman. The portal also lets them access a broad scope of technical manuals, 3D product images, and other resources with detailed specifications, place orders for replacement parts, and receive technical help online.

Personalized content and service was crucial for Huisman to maintain a helpful digital interaction with customers at different types of companies, regardless of where they were operating and their level of internet access, de Rover says. She notes that a typical cost of equipment out of service for maintenance or repairs can run $200,000 or more per day.

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“Our industry is based on relations and personal contact with people who may work 30-40 years for the same company,” she says. “So, before we started building this platform, I formed a customer advisory board … and the clients helped us build the platform.”

Among myHuisman’s features are:

• Dedicated parts shops for customers with highly customized equipment. “It’s quite important for them to know what specific items are available for their equipment,” de Rover says. For example, she notes that a 2,600-metric-ton leg-encircling crane can have over 10,000 serviceable items and parts available for purchase, and a customer can click to see all the parts that are available, the price and the order lead times.
• Access to a technical digital library of what are typically huge volumes of product manuals and documents related to the purchase and operation of Huisman equipment.

In the past, ships outfitted with Huisman cranes or other products would carry a full ship container stocked with paper manuals and documents. Next came CD-ROMs, which offered helpful 3D imaging used for maintaining and repairing equipment, but intermittent internet access limited their usefulness.

The new library available through myHuisman lets customers download materials online and use them with full interactive features even without internet access.

• An online services ticketing system, which customers can use aboard vessels to arrange to receive technical assistance from Huisman technicians and engineers. Customers can also check other users’ questions and their status and review Huisman’s recorded replies.

In some cases, a Huisman engineer will travel by air and water to arrive at a client’s vessel to conduct onboard service, but to limit the expense of such travel, Huisman has developed alternate remote support services using such tools as photo-taking drones and the enterprise version of smart glasses to share images of onboard equipment with land-based engineers and technicians.

Keeping track online of made-to-order cranes

Later this year, Huisman also expects to launch a digital file management system for keeping customers up to date on the status of customized cranes and other equipment as they’re in production. De Rover notes that the production process can take two to three years, making it difficult to regularly maintain, share and organize project documents with customers on typically highly complex, made-to-order products.

For Huisman’s largest and most ecommerce-mature customers, the manufacturer is also working on providing direct connections from companies’ enterprise resource planning or plant maintenance systems to the myHuisman web shop for fast and efficient ordering of products.

De Rover says there is a significant growth opportunity as Huisman onboards more customers to myHuisman for routine activities like scheduling service calls, freeing up its salespeople and account managers to spend more time on helping these companies match their needs to Huisman’s product offerings.

Sophie du Mortier, marketeer, Huisman

Going forward, Huisman is developing a technology application designed to let customers remotely monitor on myHuisman the construction progress of cranes they’ve ordered.

“Once they buy a crane, they can monitor their equipment’s complete production process,” says Sophie du Mortier, marketeer for Huisman. “Customers can collaborate with Huisman on design and test documentation. They will have full insights in planning. Transparency is key.”

Huisman is also developing a myHuisman online performance dashboard that enables condition-based monitoring, a method using information from equipment-embedded sensors to give customers information on required maintenance.

“They have a complete overview of the status of the equipment,” du Mortier says. “And we are working towards a servicing model in which we can use this data to provide operational advice.”

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

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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Yikun Shao, head of supply chain for North America, Alibaba.com

Businesses have been carefully watching the state of global supply chains as they have had to maneuver around obstacle after obstacle to ensure they meet the increasing demands of customers. In 2024, businesses will continue to feel the brunt of existing challenges, as well as meet new ones, and it will be critical to anticipate and find new ways to manage these issues while living up to customer expectations.

Of note, nearly four in ten (38%) small businesses think the global supply chain outlook will have a negative impact on their business, according to an Alibaba.com survey, so it will be important to watch for changes throughout the year and monitor for potential concerns.

One of the most pressing challenges the industry faces is a shift of issues from the supply to the demand side. On the supply side, more raw materials are available, and there are fewer transportation obstacles.

However, on the demand side, there has been rising inflation globally, and backlogged inventory, especially in the U.S. and E.U., has led to a decrease in demand, compounded by decreased demand for certain products. While the U.S. saw a return to pre-pandemic consumer holiday season spending in 2023, businesses may still want a more conservative approach and order products in smaller quantities, meaning that meeting shipping requirements may become more difficult. Demand is not able to meet the products that the supply side is able to provide.

On top of this, recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing as supply chains are still readjusting from related interruptions. There is more stability, but recovery takes time, especially as new challenges arise.

Mounting Concerns Businesses Should Monitor

Businesses are also facing a number of additional issues that could spell trouble for them throughout the year that they should be watching carefully:

• Cyber attacks: Threats from bad actors continue to be a growing issue. Small businesses are three times more likely to be targeted by cybercriminals, and the cost of cybercrimes to small businesses reached $2.4 billion in 2021.
• Labor and government shutdowns: 70% of small business owners say a government shutdown would negatively impact their business, and 93% say it would hurt their revenue. Additionally, labor strikes can also impact small businesses by disrupting vendors or shipping partners.
• Natural disaster events: With 2023 on track to be the hottest year on record and extreme weather events increasing, supply chains could be increasingly disrupted by natural disasters and unworkable conditions.
• Panama Canal disruptions: The drought in Panama, largely caused by the El Niño climate phenomenon, has caused major delays and bottlenecks for those in the logistics industry. Scientists believe climate change may be prolonging dry spells and increasing temperatures in Panama. As such, the situation has become dire and expected to continue into at least mid-2024, as the number of ships allowed through the canal will decrease into February.
• The state of the U.S. economy: 47% of small business owners feel the economy will get worse in the next 12 months, and 58% said their business is being impacted by higher interest rates.

It will be crucial for businesses to monitor these and other issues and adapt as necessary by tapping into innovative industry tools and resources.

Digital Tools Address the Changing Supply Chain Landscape

As supply chain and logistics trends continue to evolve, digital tools can make it easier to manage operations to ensure on-time deliveries. There are a variety of tools on the market that can help businesses stay up-to-date on shipping and inventory processes. Companies can also invest in data analytics programs to assess patterns in inventory management and customer demands. There are even technology offerings that can help model and then execute on needs as supply chains come under greater stress. The goal in utilizing digital solutions like these is to predict trends, streamline processes and increase efficiency no matter the current supply chain landscape.

To make the biggest impact, specifically engineered intelligent tools, like Alibaba.com’s Smart Assistant, are also available, and they can provide better insight into the sourcing process. They can include features surrounding supplier transparency, direct communication with translation, shipment tracking, protections for wrong or delayed orders, and digital inventory awareness. These functions allow businesses to keep tabs on their orders and adjust to changes to time orders accordingly and, most of all, have peace of mind when sourcing their products.

However, employing digital tools is just one avenue businesses can take for upping their supply chain game.

Alternative Shipping and Warehousing Methods

Thinking outside the box when updating your shipping practices can also help to increase efficiencies, meet the growing demand for faster deliveries and stay resilient during supply chain setbacks.

There is a newer phenomenon in the form of crowdsourced delivery. This allows businesses to scale their shipment operations and work with other businesses to achieve timeliness and efficiency in deliveries. This communal form of shipping will continue to grow and become highly utilized in the coming years as technology becomes more widely adopted.

Beyond crowdsourced delivery, the localization of supply chains is also helping keep things closer to home, reduce logistics costs and cut order fulfillment time for small businesses. Localization may take the form of strategically built warehousing networks to maintain inventory closer to major customer bases. Some businesses are also using third-party warehouses, but these can have numerous and complex restrictions, which are constantly evolving. With that in mind, regional warehousing could be a viable alternative.

The world of ecommerce logistics and supply chain is constantly changing, but digitization, localization and omni-channel distribution are the three areas of innovation that businesses should consider taking advantage of. New technologies are bringing more transparency to the process than ever before. While these trends are growing, it will be critical for businesses to stay vigilant and monitor for new innovations and supply chain developments in order to be ready to tackle future challenges and seize new opportunities to evolve and improve their supply chains.

About the author:

Yikun Shao is Head of Supply Chain for North America at international marketplace Alibaba.com.

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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.

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

“While working with brands and marketplaces over the past year, it became clear that the inefficiencies and costs of business payments were impacting their profit margins,” Balance CEO Bar Geron says. “Tackling this problem required going beyond the point of purchase. This is why our solutions now optimize across the transaction lifecycle, from order placement to payment settlement.”

Bay Fastening Systems, an industrial products distributor, is using Balance technology to help grow its digital marketplace, BaySupply.com, Michael Eichinger, Bay’s chief operating officer, says in a press release announcing the new Balance suite.

“We were able to grow our digital channel in ways we didn’t know were possible,” he says. He adds that the Balance suite offers “product flexibility and ability to work with our existing business processes.”

The Balance product suite includes:

• Digital Trade Credit – Includes AI-enhanced credit reviews for payment terms, with an integrated checkout application and invoice payments.
• B2B Payments – Supports a variety of payment methods, including payment cards and bank ACH transfers, for omnichannel and global transactions. Includes products such as buyer accounts payable tools, automated reconciliation and dashboard reporting.
• Marketplace OS – Provides online marketplaces with products that provide multiple payment and financing options for buyers and payouts to third-party vendors.

Balance’s new product suite follows other payments technology applications it launched last year. These other applications include international digital financing and payment services developed with Europe-based Hokodo Services Ltd. and a buyer portal and dunning management tool for managing receivables and collecting late payments.

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

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Kathleen Lewarchick

Some digital technologies arrive with fanfare while others enter quietly and become ubiquitous over time. Voice technology is one example of the latter. It gained momentum when developers and users began expanding their views of sound as part of multi-sensory engagement.

Voice activation was popularized by Google. They provided a “speech-to-text option” as part of their search functionality. And voice activation went from a quiet bleeding-edge technology (think OnStar) to a crescendo of widescale adoption as people began to use (and like) Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, and others.

Making headway in B2B and B2C markets

It was only a matter of time before voice activation would become a powerful tool in commerce. Voice commerce, or v-commerce, is making headway in both B2C and B2B markets. Its technology twin, artificial intelligence (AI), complements and accelerates this trend.

There are obvious benefits, especially for those who are visually impaired or have diminished motor skills. There are also inherent risks, such as authentication and security. However, more and more voice commerce examples are appearing in the B2B market because of ease and simplicity.

One example is hands-free ordering. A facilities manager might be replacing dirty equipment during scheduled maintenance when he or she recognizes a missing piece. One option is to pause work, clean hands and record the part for an order later. The alternative is voice commerce on the job, where the manager pauses for a voice-activated ordering assist, and then quickly gets back to the maintenance job.

Here’s an example of a voice-commerce shopping experience where the buyer:

● Audibly requests items to be placed in a cart, as pictured here:

● Places the order directly through the integrated order management system.

● And receives system confirmation through voice (and visual) outputs, as shown here:

While there’s no guarantee that the part is in inventory, voice commerce enables the order to be placed hands-free at the direct moment of need.  Not only does this save time, but it may eliminate order errors if the order process is fully automated.

Essential to B2B business growth

Voice commerce, or v-commerce, is no longer on the horizon. Competitively advantaged companies are using it today to help customers save time and effort. And more users enjoy hands-free technology. It is likely that B2B use cases will only grow given the tight labor market and calls for improved productivity. Getting started on the journey of voice commerce is essential to maintaining your B2B business growth.

Kathleen Leigh Lewarchick is the VP of Marketing for Xngage LLC, a B2B digital commerce services company with more than 60 clients across the industrial trades. She is the former PURELL® Hand Sanitizer Brand Director, has co-created automated replenishment products with Amazon Business, and created telehealth solutions for a company that she later helped sell to CVS Health. 

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MSC Industrial is a prominent metalworking and maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) products distributor. It said yesterday that ecommerce sales grew 1.8% year over year to $603.7 million for the fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 2. That increase compares to slack total Q1 sales, which slipped 0.4% to $957.7 million.

MSC Industrial said its ecommerce sales helped to partially offset offline sales declines tied to soft demand caused by striking auto industry workers and other factors.

Two principle ways to unlock growth

On an earnings call with stock analysts this week, Gershwind noted that MSC has prodded ecommerce sales with “two foundational priorities for unlocking growth — realigning our public-facing pricing and implementing a new product discovery functionality on our website.”

“With respect to pricing, our goal is to provide market competitive prices to smaller customers, while remaining roughly gross-margin neutral to better discounting,” he said. “We are currently 30% of the way through the realignment, and we’re on track to achieve that goal.”

“We’re seeing encouraging early indicators, such as improved web conversion rates and more favorable levels of growth,” Gershwind said. He added, “The goal is to create a market competitive price for any customer that wants to come to us.”

Gershwind also said MSC expects to complete the deployment of its new product discovery platform before the end of the current fiscal quarter in March.

“We will more aggressively market the pricing and the web improvements in the back half of our fiscal year,” he said, adding, “These efforts will allow us to significantly expand our share of wallet across our customers.”

In other developments, Gershwind said MSC was moving ahead with multiple environmental, social and governance improvements, including:

• Recycling over 20,000 pounds of carbide since 2021 through its regrinding services.
• In fiscal 2023, recycling 1,500 tons of corrugated packaging and enabling MSC’s customers to reduce electricity consumption by 32 million kilowatt hours.

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 MSC Industrial report.

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