Mark Brohman says, “75 of the 100 biggest companies ranked in the 2016 B2B E-Commerce 300 sell online to their business customers in four distinct ways.

Big U.S. manufacturers and wholesalers certainly aren’t one-trick ponies when it comes to conducting business-to-business e-commerce. In fact the biggest 100 B2B companies ranked in the newly published 2016 B2B E-Commerce 300 use as many as four different forms of web-based e-commerce to sell online to their business customers.

E-commerce for manufacturers of all sizes takes multiple forms and can take years to implement, says Heather Ashton, research manager with consulting firm IDC Manufacturing Insights. Manufacturers may operate an e-commerce site that is open to all or they may create a password-protected site only for approved customers. And many manufacturers sell online in other ways: via web-connected procurement software linked directly to a customer’s enterprise resource planning system, through a commercial vertical market network such as the one operated by Ariba Inc., over industry web exchanges such as Covisint for vehicle makers and Exostar for defense and aerospace manufacturers, and through online marketplace sites operated by eBay Inc., Alibaba Group and others“.

For big manufacturers, B2B e-commerce takes many forms

Internet Retailer

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