Estimates from eMarketer calculate B2B companies spent $4.07 billion on online advertising in 2017. In 2018, the spending is expected to increase 13 percent to 4.6 billion. Across the board, companies are pouring more money into technologies that allow them to place advertisements where their customers are.

The Internet has created a new dynamic and structure for B2B businesses in which marketing teams, sales teams and e-commerce tools converge to maximize revenue. Some industry studies have painted a bleak future for sales teams, one in which they’ll be phased out entirely and replaced with automated e-commerce stores.

Global B2B e-commerce has already outgrown B2C, with the B2B e-commerce market expected to reach $1.1 trillion in value in 2019 as compared to B2C ($480 billion), according to Forrester. B2B e-commerce on the global scale remains in its infancy, despite the market having some sort of B2B e-commerce for the past two decades.

Recently, CEO of W.W. Grainger D.G. Macpherson, one of the largest B2B companies in the U.S., predicted 80 percent of their sales will occur through online channels by 2020, according to Industrial Distribution.

The B2B e-commerce market is estimated to be worth roughly $1.1 trillion by 2021, according to predictions from Forrester Research. The market is at an inflection point, driven by the changing preferences of the B2B customer.

MSC Industrial is one of the largest distributors of metalworking, repair and operations (MRO) products and services for manufacturers worldwide. They take pride in having over 1 million product offerings, many of which are itemized in their annual Big Book, a master catalog that is over 4,000 pages.

This week is the annual Automotive Content Professionals Network (ACPN) conference. ACPN comprises mostly automotive manufacturing companies, along with some distributors and retailers. Rudy Brynac and Larry Ball are representing Dirxion on Tuesday at the conference in Kansas City, Mo.

Many B2B catalog providers do business in a variety of countries, cultures and languages. Without the translated catalog, a lot of business could be lost in translation. That is why we think it is important to support a wide selection of languages in our online catalog product.