Business-to-business Web sales increased by 16 percent last year, with overall industry transactional growth increasing by 13 percent, according the Abacus 2006 Business-to-Business Industry Insights Report.
The annual report looks at the businesses, channels and industries that drove BTB sales and transactions in 2005. It found that small businesses accounted for 81 percent of BTB revenue last year.
A division of DoubleClick Inc., Abacus (www.abacus-us.com), Lafayette, CO, analyzed a sample set of 0-12 month multi-buyers from the company’s Alliance database finding 6.2 million BTB contacts made 14 million purchases last year, resulting in $2.8 billion in sales. This indicates a 2 percent increase in buyers. Industry sales rose 9 percent, despite the higher rise in transactions, due to a 3 percent decrease in the average sale value. The average sales went from $207 in 2004 to $200 in 2005.
Small business is the best BTB target, according to the report. Purchases in that sector increased by 11 percent from last year, totaling $566 million. Large business spent $77 million and mid-sized businesses spent $52 million. Although they purchased more frequently, small businesses spent an average of 32 percent less per contact than large businesses.
Additional results indicate that BTB customers purchase online nearly 10 percent more than BTC consumers. Stacey Hawes, vice president of BTB services for Abacus, said these results reiterate the importance of designing separate marketing strategies for each audience.
Industrial, manufacturing and transportation companies accounted for the highest spending of any group, 39 percent of total sales. The next big spenders were business and legal, 19 percent and retail and restaurant at 14 percent.
Marketers selling furniture saw the greatest revenue increase, up 116 percent from 2004. Sales were on an increase with cards, stationery and agriculture as the only product categories on the Abacus B2B Alliance that did not show a revenue increase in 2005.
