B2B E-Commerce Signals 2025: AI & Marketplaces

Editor’s Note

Insights from this edition to keep you informed and ahead.

Welcome — this edition is built for B2B E-Commerce managers and decision makers who need clear, research-backed signals and practical steps to keep platforms, teams, and roadmaps moving. Below you’ll find a short briefing on AI in B2B E-Commerce, marketplace strategy, platform capability highlights, and a curated reading list from Reveation Labs to help your next digital moves.

Insights from this edition to keep you informed and ahead.

• ~70% of business leaders say implementing AI (non-generative) is very or extremely important for E-Commerce; 65% say the same for generative AI — but adoption is still early. Use cases that lead today: chatbots, on-site search, and marketing content generation. _{^{HBR AS report}}

• B2B E-Commerce overall is forecast to grow fast, and marketplace models are growing even faster — marketplaces are projected to grow at ~32% CAGR with marketplace share of B2B online sales rising sharply. ^{_{McKiney State of AI report}}

If you sell through digital channels, marketplace planning should be on your roadmap.

Featured Event + Bonus Gift Card

Featured event to deepen your digital commerce knowledge

Trend Watch

Latest trends and tips to boost operational excellence

1) AI → prioritize customer-facing search & service first

Where gen-AI is actually used (today): Top functions are marketing & sales and service operations (customer service/search). _{^{McKinsey & Company}}

Chatbots & on-site assistants move the needle: 2024 U.S. holiday ecommerce saw AI-influenced sales rise and chatbot usage up 42% YoY (Salesforce data, via Reuters). ^_Reuters

Search relevance pilots (LTR + vector/NLP):

• Learning-to-Rank is the core E-Commerce search lever (survey of LTR in e-commerce). _^arXiv

• Hybrid keyword+vector search is recommended to lift quality (Vertex AI docs; Elastic sparse-vector relevance). ^{_{Google Cloud}}

Measured conversion/AOV impact (what to benchmark):

• Central Group: +10% conversion uplift from AI-powered shopping/search. _{^{Google Cloud}}

• TFG x Bloomreach Clarity: +35.2% conversion and +39.8% RPV where the agent engaged. _^Bloomreach

• McKinsey rollouts: reported +5.5% AOV in first 30 days (multi-brand note). _{^{McKinsey & Company}}

2) Gen-AI drives speed — but governance matters

Speed/productivity: IBM reported compressing creative cycles from two weeks to two days using Adobe Gen-AI tools; Adobe’s 2025 Digital Trends shows 86% of leaders expect faster content speed/volume.

Top adoption barriers: Data privacy/trust, skills gaps, and integration/scale rank highest in IBM’s Global AI Adoption Index

Governance + human-in-the-loop: NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework prescribes human oversight and governance controls for deployed AI. _^NIST

3) Marketplaces = growth lever — but require new ops

Growth outlook: Mirakl + Deloitte note B2B marketplace sales projected to grow at 32% CAGR with 14% of B2B e-commerce by 2025; marketplaces drive new revenue sources vs owned-inventory models. ^_Contentful

Minimum Viable Ecosystem (MVE): Launch with a focused seller+buyer nucleus to validate value; define seller onboarding, catalog harmonization, SLAs, payouts, and a KPI set before scaling. (See “Minimum Viable Ecosystem” callouts and seller-management/SLAs pages.) _^Contentful

Operate like an ecosystem: The blueprint details capability matrices, back-office payouts/tax, and team structure for marketplace ops. _^Contentful

4) Platform choice: headless + composable wins for B2B agility

Why API-first/composable: IDC advises composable, API-first stacks to enable agility and faster adaptation in B2B digital commerce. ^{_{blogs.idc.com}}

APIs are table stakes: Gartner’s digital commerce definition emphasizes interoperability via APIs. ^_Gartner

B2B must-haves you can wire in quickly (quotes, contract pricing, multi-catalog):

Contract/price lists & multi-catalog: OroCommerce price-list & catalog controls; Shopify B2B company profiles + GraphQL Admin API for B2B objects/catalogs. ^{_{Oro Doc}}

Time-to-value signals: Pre-composed/composable B2B solutions report faster implementations (e.g., commercetools Foundry cites ~30% less implementation time). _{^{Commercetools}}

Platform Pulse

Key updates from top B2B eCommerce platforms globally

• Liferay DXP Commerce — strong B2B capabilities out of the box: multi-catalogs, account-aware pricing, shop-by-diagram (spare parts UX), subscription and order workflows, and headless APIs for ERP/WMS integrations. Great fit if you need portal + commerce in a single platform and deep B2B order workflows.  

• Virto Commerce — modular, .NET, API-first and highly customizable for complex B2B use cases (catalog harmonization, multi-store, contract pricing). Reveation Labs has several practical how-tos and comparison posts showing when Virto is the right choice.

• Shopify (B2B via Shopify + Partners) — focuses on speed to market and strong checkout/integration flows; excellent when paired with middleware to handle advanced B2B pricing/quoting.

Our recent webinar with Shopify covered real migration and integration patterns

Action Checklist

What you can do right away!

1. Run a short 6–8 week AI pilot focused on search or chatbot deflection; measure engagement and AOV.

2. Map your B2B catalog → identify gaps for marketplace harmonization (global SKUs, datasheets, exploded diagrams).

3. If replatforming: choose API-first platform + middleware for contract pricing and ERP connectivity (Virto, Liferay, or composable Shopify stacks are common choices).

4. Define one marketplace MVE (category + 5–10 sellers) and a clear SLA + onboarding playbook before recruiting broadly.

Ready to Transform?

Book a 1-on-1 Strategy Session with our eCommerce Executive