What has changed is the pace and pressure surrounding those decisions. Across manufacturing, engineering, and industrial supply, buyers are operating in environments where speed, accuracy, and availability directly affect productivity on the ground. As workloads increase and timelines tighten, friction in the buying process becomes more visible and less tolerated.
In response, industrial businesses are being pushed toward a new reality—one shaped by online purchasing, self-service access, and faster buying cycles. In this environment, digital transformation is about making everyday buying faster, clearer, and more reliable, without undermining the relationships that still matter.
How Buyer Behaviour Is Exposing the Limits of Legacy Sales Models
Industrial buying now takes place across locations, devices, and moments of need. Engineers and procurement teams research products, check availability, and place orders wherever work is happening—in the office, on site, or on the move.
Recent research reflects the scale of this shift. More than 60% of industrial buyers now purchase online, and digital orders account for roughly 30% of total purchasing volume—a dramatic increase over the past decade. What was once a secondary channel has become a routine part of day-to-day buying.
As a result, tolerance for friction has dropped sharply. Buyers expect to complete routine purchases without waiting for call-backs, re-confirming pricing, or manually chasing order status. They expect immediate access to their prices, current stock levels, and reliable delivery information.
Many industrial organisations, however, still rely on sales processes designed for a slower, more predictable environment. Orders arrive by email or phone, pricing is validated manually, and teams bridge gaps between disconnected systems.
As buying patterns fragment and digital demand grows, this manual intervention becomes a bottleneck—exposing a structural mismatch between modern buying behaviour and legacy operating models.
Ecommerce as Operational Infrastructure, Not Just a Channel
Ecommerce becomes truly valuable for industrial businesses when it is treated as more than an ordering interface. At its best, it acts as shared infrastructure—aligning buyers, sales teams, and backend systems around consistent data and repeatable processes.
Handled this way, ecommerce changes how work flows through the organisation. Product information, customer-specific pricing, and availability are surfaced once and reused everywhere. Routine transactions move online, while sales teams retain visibility and control over complex, high-value interactions. The result is not less human involvement, but fewer manual handoffs and fewer points of failure.
This shift has tangible operational impact. Order cycles shorten, errors decrease, and customers gain confidence in what they see and place. Over time, the business becomes easier to scale—supporting more customers, channels, or regions without relying on proportional increases in manual effort.
In industrial commerce, ecommerce is increasingly the system that holds modern buying together.
Making Progress Without Disruption: Digital Transformation in Practice
Despite the clear benefits, many industrial businesses hesitate to push further with digital commerce. The reasons are familiar. Products may be highly configurable or project-based. Long-standing customers may prefer calling their sales representative. Existing ERP systems already manage pricing and orders, raising questions about what ecommerce truly adds.
In practice, successful digital transformation rarely involves an all-or-nothing shift. Most industrial organisations progress incrementally, using digital tools to simplify repeat purchases, improve visibility into pricing and availability, or reduce manual handoffs between systems. Complex quotes, bespoke configurations, and relationship-driven sales can continue through traditional channels, now supported by better data and more consistent processes.
This is where digital maturity becomes a practical concept rather than an abstract goal. Organisations that take a structured approach to assessing and improving their digital capabilities are better positioned to reduce friction, scale efficiently, and sustain growth over time. Progress is measured not by reaching a perfect end state, but by steadily making everyday transactions easier and more reliable.
Building the Future of Industrial Commerce
Industrial buyer expectations have changed, and they continue to shape how work gets done across manufacturing and engineering environments.
For these businesses, the question is no longer whether to embrace digital commerce, but how to do so in a way that supports existing relationships and operational realities.
When treated as strategic infrastructure rather than a standalone channel, ecommerce provides a practical path forward.
Those that align their commerce operations with modern buying behaviour will be better positioned to operate efficiently and remain competitive.
For organisations seeking clarity on where to focus next, BigCommerce’s B2B Digital Maturity Guide and Digital Maturity Assessment offer a structured way to benchmark current capabilities and identify practical next steps.
