Categories: Podcasts

FAQ

Should your B2B company launch its own marketplace? Brian says yes (for distributors). Andy says yes (for manufacturers). They both say no to the other’s position. And neither can find proof that any of it actually works.

In this episode of Master B2B Friday 15, Brian Beck and Andy Hoar have their most spirited disagreement yet — debating who should launch company-owned B2B marketplaces, whether the model delivers ROI, and why the hype from 2021-2023 has gone eerily quiet.

FAQ

Q: What is a company-owned B2B marketplace? A: A company-owned marketplace is when a manufacturer or distributor launches a platform where multiple sellers can offer products to buyers — distinct from traditional e-commerce where only the company sells its own products. It differs from horizontal marketplaces like Amazon or Alibaba, which operate across many categories. The model creates a two-sided business: you need to recruit and manage both buyers and sellers, which dramatically increases complexity compared to standard e-commerce. Companies like 3M, Schneider Electric, and Parts Town have launched versions of this model.

Q: Is there evidence that B2B company-owned marketplaces deliver ROI? A: Surprisingly, no. Brian Beck reported that despite extensive searching — including scouring marketplace platform providers’ websites — he could not find a single statistic showing that company-owned B2B marketplaces deliver measurable ROI. A Forrester study from 2023 showed that decision-makers expected increased sales, ability to scale without headcount, and increased assortment to drive ROI. But proof that those outcomes materialized is absent from the public record. Andy Hoar’s theory: the investment is still too large and recent for companies to show positive returns — “we’re in that window where they can’t tell you whether there was an ROI because the I is still big.”

Q: Why does Brian Beck think marketplaces make more sense for distributors? A: Beck argues that distributors already have the foundation: established e-commerce platforms, sophisticated digital teams, existing buyer relationships, and a business model built on broad assortment. A marketplace is a natural extension — it allows them to expand their product selection without taking on inventory. He views the manufacturer marketplace model as largely a “glorified store locator” that avoids channel conflict but doesn’t justify the investment. His advice to manufacturers: “Just go suck it up and go directly into selling e-commerce. Channel conflict is not as bad as you think it is.”

Q: Why does Andy Hoar think marketplaces make more sense for manufacturers? A: Hoar argues from a critical mass and strategic perspective. He notes that distributors are already marketplaces by definition — adding a formal marketplace layer doesn’t fundamentally change their model. For manufacturers like 3M, a marketplace lets them control where products go, work with top-tier resellers, capture valuable sell-through data, and monetize the long tail — all while threading the needle on channel conflict. He sees it as a multi-dimensional strategy where manufacturers can sell some products directly, have distributors fulfill others, and let distributors lead in certain scenarios.

Q: How complex is it to launch a B2B marketplace? A: Extremely. Forrester research from 2023 found that more than half of companies that launched marketplaces spent $3 million or more, and nearly two-thirds took six months or longer — some as long as two years. The biggest underestimated area was seller onboarding and management. The complexity spans technology (managing multi-seller fulfillment, inventory uploads, seller pages), data (relying on other parties to provide product information), sales (actively recruiting sellers), fulfillment (monitoring third-party shipping), and organizational structure. As Beck noted, “Amazon has thousands of people that recruit sellers to the marketplace. That is constantly underestimated.”

Q: What are the non-financial benefits of launching a marketplace? A: Andy Hoar identified several benefits beyond direct revenue. First, it resolves channel conflict for manufacturers who want access to end-customer data without competing directly with their distributors — the marketplace takes the order and distributors handle fulfillment. Second, it provides valuable sell-through data that manufacturers otherwise don’t have access to. Third, it can serve as a defensive strategy against Amazon — having your own marketplace could “blunt some of the effect of people going to Amazon.” These non-financial returns may justify the investment even if direct financial ROI is unclear.

Q: What did the community say about B2B marketplaces? A: The Master B2B community poll was a perfect 50/50 split — half said “Great model” and half said “No, way too complex.” Tim Lavender, a longtime B2B e-commerce leader, requested an “it depends” option, which both hosts agreed was probably the most honest answer. The split reflects the broader industry uncertainty: the model has theoretical promise and some success stories (Schneider Electric, Parts Town), but the complexity and unclear ROI make it a genuinely divided debate.

Q: What was the breaking news about Amazon and Oracle? A: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy released his annual shareholder letter, dismissing fears of an AI bubble and highlighting Amazon’s $200 billion AI investment commitment for 2026. He noted demand for Amazon’s chips is so high they may sell them to third parties — following their pattern of building internally then commercializing (AWS, fulfillment). However, Andy Hoar provided a counterpoint: Oracle lost financing for a data center build the same week, Meta laid off 20% of its workforce, and Microsoft announced buyouts for 7% of theirs. “Just because he says something doesn’t make it so,” Hoar cautioned.

What’s getting too much hype in B2B e-commerce — and what’s flying under the radar that deserves way more attention?

At the Master B2B Mindshare Summit, Brian Beck and Andy Hoar ran table-topic discussions asking senior B2B e-commerce execs to call out what’s overhyped and underhyped. The results were revealing — and AI landed on BOTH lists. In this episode, they’re joined by Jared Blank, Master B2B’s producer, who facilitated the discussion and shares the most surprising moments.

Overhyped:

🔻 Gen AI as a time-saver : “AI allows us to go from 9-to-5 to 24/7”

🔻 AI finishing the job: “AI gets you 50-90% faster, but the last 10% is the challenge”

🔻 Launching your own marketplace: reality has set in on the effort required

Underhyped:

🔺 Product data: “the oil that lubricates everything else”

🔺 AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): now arguably as important as SEO

🔺 Payment terms: instant B2B credit is transformative but underadopted

🔺 Digital self-service: “younger buyers don’t want to talk to anyone”

The AI paradox: At the summit tables, if someone said AI was overhyped, everyone agreed. If the next person said it was underhyped, everyone agreed with that too. As Jared observed: “AI is whatever you want it to be.”

FAQ

Q: What did B2B executives say is overhyped right now? A: Three things stood out. First, generative AI as a time-saver — while AI creates efficiency on specific tasks, people are filling freed-up time with more work. One attendee captured it perfectly: “AI allows us to go from 9-to-5 to 24/7.” Another noted that “AI can get you 50 to 90% faster than ever, but the challenge is that last 10%.” Second, the idea that AI can finish the job independently — humans are still needed at the beginning and definitely at the end. Third, launching your own marketplace — a trend from two or three years ago that has faded as companies recognize the enormous operational effort required beyond just the technology.

Q: What did B2B executives say is underhyped? A: Four areas consistently came up. Product data was number one — described as “the oil that lubricates everything else.” AEO (answer engine optimization) was second, now arguably as important as or more important than traditional SEO, having moved remarkably fast in just the past year. Payment terms was third — B2B credit approval that used to take weeks of paperwork can now happen instantly through companies like Credit Key and TreviPay, yet adoption remains surprisingly low. Finally, digital self-service was called out as still underhyped because “younger buyers don’t want to talk to anyone” — and basic capabilities like order tracking still aren’t there for many B2B companies.

Q: How can AI be both overhyped and underhyped at the same time? A: This was the most fascinating finding from the summit. As Jared Blank observed, if someone at the table started by saying AI was overhyped, everyone agreed. Then if the next person said it was underhyped, everyone agreed with that too. “AI is whatever you want it to be — like that picture where it’s either a witch or a horse depending on how you see it.” Andy Hoar offered a framework: “For people who appreciate and understand the value of AI, it’s underhyped. For people who don’t really understand or appreciate the value, it’s overhyped.” It also depends on organizational context — if you can freely experiment, AI feels underhyped; if your company is putting the brakes on from a security standpoint, it feels overhyped.

Q: Is the B2B marketplace trend dead? A: Not dead, but the hype has faded significantly. Companies like Schneider Electric have successfully launched marketplaces, but the reality of the effort required has set in. Andy Hoar argued that marketplaces are best positioned for large manufacturers with critical mass and destination-site potential, and least viable for small distributors. Brian Beck pushed back slightly, arguing that the distributor model naturally benefits from more inventory. Both agreed the bigger issue isn’t the business model but the operational commitment — you need to recruit suppliers, manage fulfillment, control the experience, and essentially run a sales operation alongside the technology.

Q: Why do the “basics” keep showing up as underhyped year after year? A: This was a key insight from Jared Blank. Despite four years of Master B2B summits that have consistently identified product data, self-service, and similar fundamentals as critical, they keep appearing as “underhyped.” As Jared asked: “Has there been no improvement?” Andy Hoar compared it to defense in sports — it always needs to be better, no matter how good it gets. He also noted that Amazon’s innovation primarily consists of small incremental improvements, like reducing a process from 18 steps to 12 — blocking and tackling that isn’t sexy enough for a press release but compounds into massive competitive advantage.

Q: Why wasn’t e-commerce platform selection discussed much at the summit? A: Jared Blank noted that across two days, he didn’t have or overhear a single conversation about e-commerce platforms — a topic that used to dominate B2B discussions. The reason: if you’ve replatformed in the past 7-10 years, you likely have something that works well enough to improve upon rather than rip out. There’s limited appetite for multi-year implementations when the technology landscape changes so rapidly. As Andy Hoar pointed out, ChatGPT launched just three and a half years ago — who can predict what the world looks like in three to five years? Companies aren’t willing to make long-term investments that lock them in.

Q: What was the breaking news about the attacks on Sam Altman? A: Shortly after the previous Friday 15 episode discussed AI’s growing societal tensions, Molotov cocktails were thrown at Sam Altman’s home over the weekend. The hosts connected it to broader trends: 55% of Americans believe AI will do more harm than good (up from 44% last year), 70% think AI will lead to fewer jobs, and only 5% believe AI development represents their interests. Andy Hoar predicted this will become a major political issue, noting a potential realignment where blue-collar workers who are unaffected by AI may embrace it, while suburban white-collar workers whose jobs are threatened become anti-AI.

At the Master B2B Mindshare Summit, Andy Hoar asked that exact question across multiple roundtable discussions with senior B2B e-commerce executives. The result: 18 different answers, but one clear winner. Data and AI stood out far above everything else, and for a surprising reason: they’re really the same investment.

In this episode of Friday 15, Brian Beck and Andy Hoar break down exactly where B2B leaders are putting their next dollar, why data is the most undervalued asset in B2B, and how to think about prioritization when everything feels urgent.

FAQ

Q: Has AI changed what B2B companies need from their systems integrator?
A: According to a Master B2B LinkedIn poll, 67% said yes — the scope looks different. However, when Chris Germann collected data from 50+ practitioners at the Mindshare Summit roundtables, AI was barely mentioned as a factor in evaluating SI partnerships. The fundamentals still dominate: “Show me value. Show me good attention. Give me the A-team all the time. It was all the fundamentals.” The hosts believe the community intellectually understands AI will change things but hasn’t yet figured out how to evaluate SIs differently because of it.

Q: What makes a systems integrator “most impactful” according to B2B practitioners?
A: Two main groups emerged from the roundtable discussions. The first group named their SI as the most impactful partner — but critically noted it typically took three or four SIs before finding the right one. What made the right SI stand out wasn’t coding ability but understanding the business, understanding the industry, and being a true strategic partner. The second group — nearly half of respondents — named specialized partners (data providers, PIM vendors, search vendors, even ERP vendors) as more impactful than their general SI, often because their SI couldn’t do data, search, or PIM well enough.

Q: Is the “generalist SI” model dead?
A: Chris Germann’s advice was direct: “The days of the generalist are over. Niches equal riches.” He recommended that SI CEOs get very clear about their core competencies and back them up with specific case studies. If you claim to do A-to-Z e-commerce, you need proof. He also predicted a wave of acquisitions where SIs buy specialized data providers to fill their gaps. Andy Hoar compared it to the ad agency model — you had general agencies for strategy and positioning, but you hired specialists for SEO. The same specialization is now happening in systems integration.

Q: Why is data competency now non-negotiable for SIs?
A: As Andy Hoar put it: “Without good data, you’ve got no AI. If you don’t know how to do data as an SI — meaning mastery of it, if you don’t have a strategy, a methodology, if you don’t understand how to make data a strategic weapon — then you’re never going to be successful with your clients on the AI front.” Data is the precursor to everything. Companies that emerged as providing the most value in the roundtable discussions were those that could handle data architecture, data consistency, and product information management.

Q: How is AI changing SI pricing models?
A: The traditional SI pricing model — time and materials, where projects cost 5 to 15 times the price of the software — is under pressure. Andy Hoar noted that companies are pushing back: “I’m not going to pay you by the hour because if you’re using AI to write code, it doesn’t take as long anymore. All I really care about is the outcome.” This is driving a shift toward outcome-based pricing, where SIs are compensated for business results rather than hours worked.

Q: What was the breaking news about AI’s public perception?
A: AI has a growing PR problem. A Wall Street Journal article reported that 55% of Americans believe AI will do more harm than good in their daily lives, up from 44% last year. An NBC News poll found AI’s net favorability rating was below that of ICE. Only 5% of Americans think AI development is being led by people who represent their interests. 70% think AI will lead to fewer jobs. Bernie Sanders published an editorial calling AI “a threat to everything the American people hold dear” and called for a moratorium on AI data center construction. The hosts discussed the political implications, noting that white-collar workers who once embraced technology may become anti-AI as it threatens their jobs.

Q: If I’m a VP of e-commerce, how should I approach SI selection now?
A: Chris Germann’s recommendation: don’t look for one SI to do everything. Instead, get multiple specialized providers — someone really good on the platform, someone excellent at data integration, and possibly someone else focused on data architecture and product information. This “best of breed” approach is providing more value than trying to find a single all-in-one partner. When evaluating any SI, prioritize their understanding of your business and industry, their ability to deliver business outcomes (not just code), and their data competency as a non-negotiable foundation.

Transcript:

Brian Beck

Welcome party people to our weekly Friday 15. My name is Brian Beck. I’m here with Andy, my partner in our Master B2B community and thought leadership series for e-commerce in B2B. Welcome Andy to another Friday 15.

Andy Hoar

Yeah, can’t wait. Let’s jump in.

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Breaking News: AI Has a PR Problem

Brian Beck

Andy, did you see this? Wall Street Journal this week — “AI Giants Go on Charm Offensive to Avert Public Backlash.” Turns out that AI has a PR problem. While AI use is increasing, 55% of Americans believe more harm than good will come from the technology in their daily lives. That’s up from 44% last year. And check this out — an NBC News poll found that AI had a net favorability rating below that of ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. Does AI have a problem?

Andy Hoar

Yes, it does. And it’s a combination of things. They are smart in that they know they have to get ahead of this. That said, I’m not sure it’s going to be successful because some of these numbers are staggering. 70% of Americans think AI will lead to fewer jobs, and only 5% — five percent — think AI’s development is being led by people and organizations that represent their interests.

Meta is building a data center in Louisiana that’s nearly the size of Manhattan, using electricity equivalent to 1.6 million homes. I know about this because none other than Bernie Sanders wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. The headline: “AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear. It kills jobs, equality, connection, democracy, and maybe the human race. Congress must act.”

I think he staked out a pretty clear position on this one.

Brian Beck

And these soon-to-be trillionaires can read this. Elon Musk will be a trillionaire by the end of the year because SpaceX is going to go public.

Andy Hoar

This is what people don’t trust — that there are these people who are worth trillions of dollars who are now controlling their lives and probably leading to the end of their careers. This is going to cause enormous upheaval in society. I think we’re only a couple years away from it.

By evidence of the fact that Bernie Sanders wrote that, this is going to be a major political issue going forward. You could have blue-collar Americans who are unaffected by AI because they’re doing things with their hands — which is what everybody’s telling their kids to do now — who love AI. And then you’ve got people in the suburbs, “Office Park dads” who used to embrace and love technology, who now are post-AI because it’s putting them out of work. Talk about a realignment.

Brian Beck

I’m seeing protests in the suburbs, man. Seriously, protests at the mall. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all develops. What do I tell my 14-year-old son? “Hey, think about the trades, buddy.”

Andy Hoar

And you know how crazy this is — the detail behind these proposals includes stuff like OpenAI proposing that there be a tax on robots instead of income tax. That sounds great, but talk about over-the-horizon stuff. That’s your solution to this problem? People are losing their jobs and you’re like, “Well, let’s just tax robots at some point.” This is going to get really weird — probably worse after it gets better.

Brian Beck

It’s going to be interesting to see how different governments get involved in this around the world because this is not an American issue. This is a worldwide dynamic. And look at this data center they’re going to build in Louisiana. Let’s say they succeed in blocking it — that’s one of the things Bernie Sanders called for, a moratorium on the development of AI data centers. Well, companies aren’t going to just stop using AI. Microsoft isn’t going to just not have data centers. They’re going to go elsewhere. Those data centers end up in China or India or South America. They’re going somewhere else.

Andy Hoar

China — not a great place to be dominating AI. I think I’m willing to make that political statement.

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The Role of the Systems Integrator in B2B

Brian Beck

So today we’re talking about something practical: has AI changed what you need from your systems integrator? Why is this important to our community? Well, the systems integrator has played a very important role in digital transformation for B2B firms — manufacturers and distributors — over the history of digital transformation.

They help define digital strategy, support platform selection, write customized code, integrate all your systems — ERP, PIM, etc. — handle change management, support digital marketing. And in implementations of new systems, which is where they’re most important, SIs drive the majority of the effort. They often consume about half of the spend in platform rollouts. According to Gartner, the writing of code and integration of software systems is the largest component of SI revenue at almost 46%.

AI seems to be changing a lot of this. Google and Microsoft report that up to 30% of their internal code repositories are already AI-written or assisted. Surveys by organizations like Sonar anticipate that AI assistance will rise to 65% of all committed code by the end of 2027. So the question is: how does this change what you as an e-commerce exec should expect and need from your SI partner?

Andy Hoar

I’d add one thing that often gets lost about SIs. Not only do they do all those technical things, but the good SIs actually come to companies saying, “We need to up your customer experience.” If you’re just writing code, that can be outsourced — Indian outsourcing firms like Wipro and Infosys have been slinging code at an affordable price for 20-30 years.

What always separated the good SIs from the average ones was that the good SIs started with business outcomes. And that’s what we’re starting to see now — outcome-based pricing. They used to charge for time and materials, projects that would be 5 to 15 times the price of the software. Now companies are saying, “Wait a minute. I’m not going to pay you by the hour because if you’re using AI to write code, it doesn’t take as long anymore. All I really care about is the outcome.”

I still think there’s a lot of value in outsourcing this because the only people worse at creating an experience for their clients than an SI is the company themselves. It’s good to have an outside view — oftentimes telling companies what they already know, but it comes from an authoritative source.

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What 50+ B2B Practitioners Said at the Summit

Brian Beck

We wanted to get the opinion of one of our leaders here. Chris Germann ran roundtable discussions at our summit in Chicago. Chris comes from a long career at Gartner and now runs our Nexus program. Chris, welcome. What did you hear when you asked about what makes for a good partner?

Chris Germann

I wasn’t real excited when you guys assigned this topic because I thought everybody’s going to just say, “Oh, the SI is the best thing we need.” But it was really interesting. Not a lot of people talked about AI, so I’ll say that up front. I think it’s taking a while to have that impact trickle into what’s actually happening on the street.

Essentially there were two main groups. We got about 50 data points — pretty good representation. The first group did name their SI as the most impactful partner. But a lot of them said it took three or four SIs to get there. There’s this process of finding and culling through your initial SI before you get one that understands the business, understands the industry, and can really help with stakeholders and be a partner. That’s still very much on everybody’s mind — finding the right person.

Brian Beck

What’s interesting about that is you didn’t hear “I need to find the best coder.” You heard “I need to find the right partner,” which implies the relationship and the strategic stuff is really important.

Andy Hoar

The coding’s been commoditized for a while and that’s been accelerated with AI. If all you’re doing is hiring somebody to write code for you, those days are numbered. It has always been the case that the exceptional SIs could actually work with you to understand how you were going to have a sustained, differentiated competitive advantage over time. That’s what you’re looking for — not people to write code.

The Rise of Specialized Partners

Chris Germann

Almost half the people who talked about their most impactful partner named specialized partners — and even some people mentioned their ERP vendor because they have such a broad impact on all areas of the business and data. Some people said, “Yes, our SI is important, but our SI and our data partner or PIM provider combined.” And some people flat out said their search vendor or data partner is the most important.

It says a lot about where people are in their journey. Some organizations have a very mature relationship with their SI, but the SI doesn’t do data very well or doesn’t do search or PIM very well. Getting a specialized outside partner — even with an SI — and not expecting your SI to do everything was providing more value to the enterprise.

Andy Hoar

It’s starting to feel like agencies. Remember, ad agencies had the general agencies that would come up with strategy and positioning, maybe write some TV commercials. But they didn’t do SEO because they weren’t very good at that, so you hired a specialized group. I think we’re starting to see that specialization take place in the systems integration space as well.

Does AI Make the SI More or Less Important?

Chris Germann

As I mentioned, there was no real thread of data that came out indicating AI was mentioned as having an impact. It just didn’t come out as something people would list as what makes their SI differentiated.

Andy Hoar

Like everything else, it changes the value but doesn’t diminish it. The question becomes: can the SIs actually evolve to accommodate this new role?

Brian Beck

So if you put yourselves in the seat of a VP of e-commerce at a big distributor or manufacturer — what am I looking for now in an SI? Am I looking for AI competency? Am I looking for them to be transparent about using AI to write code and reducing costs? There’s a lot of uncertainty in our community about what AI can even do and what it’s actually competent at today.

Chris Germann

If I had a bag of money, I would get multiple providers. I know that’s more difficult because you want one stop. But a lot of providers just aren’t able to be that broad, especially for mid-size organizations and family-run businesses in our network.

I would spend money on somebody really good on the platform, somebody really good on data integration, and maybe somebody else that’s really good on the whole data architecture and product data information. That’s where the family jewels are. That’s what came out of this research — that’s what’s providing the most value right now.

Brian Beck

So it’s best of breed from an SI perspective — you’re not looking for an all-in-one solution. If you’re advising the CEO of an SI, are you telling them to specialize?

Chris Germann

I’m saying be very clear about what your core competencies are. If you say you do e-commerce and can do A-to-Z, you have to have a lot of case studies to back that up. The days of the generalist are over. Niches equal riches.

Andy Hoar

I’ll add one critical non-negotiable for any SI going forward: you have to have a competency around data. Without good data, you’ve got no AI. If you don’t know how to do data as an SI — meaning mastery of it, if you don’t have a strategy, a methodology, if you don’t understand how to make data a strategic weapon — then you’re never going to be successful with your clients on the AI front. Data is a precursor to that.

Chris Germann

And we can make a forecast that if that’s true, there’s going to be a lot of acquisitions of the SIs buying these specialized data providers and folding them in.

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Community Poll Results

Brian Beck

Let’s get your reaction to this. We asked our LinkedIn community, “Has AI changed what you expect from your systems integration partner?” 67% said yes, the scope looks different. Only a third said no, fundamentals are the same.

Chris Germann

Intellectually, I can see it’s going to make a difference, no question. But when I sat around that table and talked to 50 people about their SIs and their most impactful partnerships, it was still the nuts and bolts. It was still the bottom line — show me value, show me good attention, give me the A-team all the time. It was all the fundamentals.

Brian Beck

That’s human stuff. Yay. There’s hope for humanity.

Andy Hoar

I remember 10 years ago at Forrester, we did an evaluation of SIs and it was the hardest wave evaluation I’d ever done. Because there was nothing to evaluate — there’s no product. You’re just evaluating personal connections and alleged expertise. I remember one customer reference that three different SIs gave us. It was the same guy. I’m like, “You’ve got three SIs that all claim you’re their customer.” He said, “Well, I guess technically that’s true.”

The one thing I’d say is that many companies don’t know how to evaluate SIs differently right now because they’re not quite sure what they’re doing going forward. How are they going to bring on a partner if they’re not quite sure what their strategy is?

Brian Beck

No question. Well, for time’s sake, we’ve got to leave it there. Chris, thank you for joining us today. All right, folks — we will see you next week on our next Friday 15. Thank you for joining today.

At the Master B2B Mindshare Summit, Andy Hoar asked that exact question across multiple roundtable discussions with senior B2B e-commerce executives. The result: 18 different answers, but one clear winner. Data and AI stood out far above everything else, and for a surprising reason: they’re really the same investment.

In this episode of Friday 15, Brian Beck and Andy Hoar break down exactly where B2B leaders are putting their next dollar, why data is the most undervalued asset in B2B, and how to think about prioritization when everything feels urgent.

FAQ

Q: Where are B2B executives investing their next dollar? A: At the Master B2B Mindshare Summit, Andy Hoar collected 18 distinct answers from roundtable discussions — but they clustered into three clear tiers. Data and AI stood out far above everything else as the top investment priority. The second tier included site search, PIM, ad spend, paid search, analytics, and Amazon. The long tail included e-commerce platforms, hiring, customer experience, ROI measurement, channels, and more. In a LinkedIn community poll, product data tied for first at 25% (alongside analytics tools), while a full third of respondents said “something else” — reflecting just how broad and fragmented the priority landscape is.

Q: Why are data and AI really the same investment? A: As Andy Hoar observed, “You can’t have the AI without the data and you can’t really do anything with the data without the AI.” The two cross-pollinate: data is the foundation AI needs to function, and increasingly AI is being used to clean and organize the data that feeds it. Rather than viewing them as separate line items, the hosts argue this is essentially one answer: your data strategy. Brian Beck emphasized that data is one of only two things a company truly owns that can’t be replicated — the other being intellectual property. Everything else is fungible.

Q: Why is bad data worse than no data? A: Hoar made a provocative argument: “Bad data is almost worse than no data because bad data will cost you time and effort to make it into something. You’re almost better off not having any data at all because if you put the bad data in there, it’s going to create bad results that you’re just going to have to go back and fix later.” This is especially acute in B2B, where product data complexity — technical specifications, compatibility requirements, application data — far exceeds B2C.

Q: What was the #1 business priority from the Master B2B regional roundtables? A: ROI of digital investments was the most frequently cited business priority across regional roundtable discussions throughout the prior year. This was followed by analytics and reporting (which enables ROI measurement), customer experience (both digital and cross-channel), product data, and then technology implementation. The hosts noted that the community is thinking about business outcomes first rather than technology for technology’s sake — a sign of maturity in B2B digital.

Q: Why do B2B companies only use 40% of their e-commerce platform? A: At the Mindshare Summit, discussions revealed that companies estimated they use only about 40% of their existing e-commerce platform capabilities. Some companies even purchase separate point solutions for functionality that already exists in their current platform — without realizing they’ve already paid for it. This is why “e-commerce platform improvements” was the top technology investment priority: it’s increasingly about enhancing and maximizing existing platforms rather than the traditional rip-and-replace approach.

Q: How should B2B leaders think about the trade-off between big and small investments? A: Brian Beck cited economist Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.” With a fixed budget, leaders must choose between large foundational investments (like data taxonomy restructuring or platform replatforming) that are hard to show immediate ROI on, versus smaller tactical projects (like product recommendation engines or checkout improvements) that can demonstrate direct ROI quickly. Beck’s personal approach was to pursue smaller projects with clear, measurable ROI to build credibility and momentum, while making the case for larger strategic investments that require C-suite alignment.

Q: Why is attribution such a critical unlock? A: Attribution — proving that digital investments influenced offline sales — remains one of B2B’s oldest unsolved problems. Hoar argued it may be the single most important enabler of future investment: “If you can draw that connection, then it might unlock the ability to invest in a lot of different areas. But if you can’t spend any money on attribution, you can’t prove it.” Many B2B companies spend money on digital but can’t connect it to outcomes because purchases happen through sales reps, phone orders, or branch visits.

Q: What happened with OpenAI, Sora, and the $122 billion raise? A: OpenAI shut down Sora because it was consuming massive compute resources — losing roughly $1 million per day — while generating only $2 million in revenue with 500,000 users. By contrast, ChatGPT generated $8 billion in revenue with a billion weekly active users. Days after killing Sora, OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion valuation. Hoar connected the timing: investors needed assurance that the money would be spent on the “super app” race — AI systems that run your entire desktop and automate your life — rather than on compute-intensive video generation. Meanwhile, Oracle announced layoffs of 18-20% of its workforce, joining Meta in redirecting human capital spending toward AI infrastructure.

Transcript:

Brian Beck

Welcome everybody to Friday 15 with Master B2B. My name is Brian Beck. I’m here with Andy, my partner in our Master B2B community and thought leadership series. Welcome Andy to another Friday 15 and another exciting episode and great conversation.

Andy Hoar

Yeah, good to be here. We got some good breaking news and a really good topic as usual.

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Breaking News: The Real Reason OpenAI Killed Sora

Brian Beck

Last week we saw and talked about OpenAI discontinuing Sora, the video app that caused all kinds of ripples in production, marketing, and media circles. You had people stopping their production studio builds because all of a sudden OpenAI and Sora was going to take on this brand new capability and make it easier and faster to produce high-quality video. And then all of a sudden they shut it down.

Andy Hoar

Yeah. And don’t forget Disney was going to invest a billion dollars in it, too. But it turns out the real reason behind all this was that Sora was sucking way too much compute power. They had a dashboard internally and they were monitoring where all the compute power was going — was it going to ChatGPT? Was it going to Sora? And they were losing a million dollars a day because the vast majority of the compute power was getting consumed by Sora, which was only generating $2 million in revenue with 500,000 users.

To put that in perspective, ChatGPT is reputed to have generated $8 billion in revenue last year. Billion with a B. A billion weekly active users. So when you did the math — Sora is doing $2 million with 500,000 users, ChatGPT is doing $8 billion with a billion weekly active users — I think Sam Altman had to look at the numbers and despite what he probably wanted to do, he had to say, look, there’s a sense of reality coming here.

OpenAI’s $122 Billion Raise and the Super App Race

Brian Beck

And then of course yesterday they announced they raised — what was it, Andy? $122 billion?

Andy Hoar

Yeah. With a valuation of $852 billion.

Brian Beck

That’s insane. So, what the heck are they going to do with all this money?

Andy Hoar

That’s actually not an open question — no pun intended. We all know that OpenAI has been in a horse race. ChatGPT versus all the other guys out there, and they’re kind of popping ahead — Gemini, one of them pops ahead with a new release and then it’s overtaken by the next one.

Well, Claude actually overtook them recently by almost every measure, and Claude is really invested in what has come to be known as a “super app” — an app that essentially runs your desktop. There was a really interesting article in the Wall Street Journal called “The Trillion Dollar Race to Automate Our Entire Lives.” It’s about using AI to run your life — artificial intelligent systems that work autonomously on a user’s computer to carry out a variety of tasks including writing software, analyzing data, etc.

This is what we’ve all been waiting for. People are doing this right now with Claude, where they basically wake up in the morning and Claude tells them what to do, how to do it, when to do it. Within the next three to five years, this is going to become common practice. And this is the game that OpenAI has been sitting on the sidelines from, and they’ve got to get back in. That’s what they’re going to spend their $122 billion on.

I think they had to reassure investors because the timing was amazing — they dropped Sora and a couple days later they closed the funding round. They had to assure investors that the hundred billion dollars was going to be spent on the super app and not on Sora.

Oracle, Meta, and the AI Spending Shift

Andy Hoar

There was another tangent to this story this week. We told the story a couple weeks ago about how Meta is rumored to be laying off 20% of its workforce. Well, this week Oracle also announced they’re laying off the equivalent of about 18 to 20% of their workforce.

If you add up Meta laying off its workforce, Oracle doing it, and now OpenAI dropping Sora and refocusing on the super app — what’s happening here is clear. The jury’s still out about whether AI is going to replace humans. But the jury is not out about whether companies are going to spend all their money on AI instead of on humans, because that’s exactly what’s going on right now.

Brian Beck

These are the tech companies and they’re at the leading edge of this stuff. Just like Amazon’s done layoffs. I’m curious — in some future Friday 15, we need to maybe pull somebody in from one of those companies and ask them, is the function and the role still being filled, or are these companies using this as an excuse to eliminate some inefficiency?

Andy Hoar

There’s a slightly different notion here, too. These other companies like Microsoft and Amazon can spend cash flow to finance the AI and data center buildout. Oracle is actually using debt to do it. Because they’re not using cash flow and they’re using debt, they’ve got to make payments. And apparently their debt ratings have gone down pretty significantly because of this. So reality is now set in.

If you’ve got tons of cash and a large channel, then AI means one thing to you. But if you want to build out data centers and you’re using debt like Oracle’s doing, they don’t have an unlimited pool of money. And OpenAI just put $122 billion in the bank — that seems unlimited, but it’s probably not unlimited either.

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Where Are You Spending Your Next Dollar?

Brian Beck

Our topic today comes from our Mindshare Summit recently at the University of Chicago. We had table-topic discussions about different issues that B2B executives are facing. One of the questions you facilitated, Andy, was: where are you spending your next dollar? This is a burning question for B2B execs because resources are limited — and time and bandwidth even more importantly are limited. So where do you put your next dollar in transforming your business digitally? What kinds of things came up at the table?

Andy Hoar

What struck me about this was the number of answers. We’d sit at the table and ask this question — it’s such a simple question, not controversial, pretty easy to answer. People spend the whole day prioritizing things. So, where are you spending your next dollar? What’s the highest priority?

I have 18 listed here on screen.

Brian Beck

Wow. 18.

Andy Hoar

There was a long tail of answers, but it did cluster. In random order: data, AI, site search, PIM, ad spend, Amazon, e-commerce platforms, hiring, customer experience, determining ROI, channels, and more.

But what I was doing at the same time was clustering them. When people would answer the same thing, I would make note of that. And here’s what we learned: data and AI stood out far and above everybody else. Then the next cohort was site search, PIM, ad spend, paid search, analytics, and Amazon. Then the long tail of e-commerce platform and several others.

What was interesting is that those two things — data and AI — kind of cross-multiply. They cross-pollinate. You can’t have the AI without the data and you can’t really do anything with the data without the AI. So that’s really in effect one answer.

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Data as the Most Undervalued Asset

Brian Beck

It’s essentially your data strategy. And I’ve said this for years — there’s intellectual property that companies possess, but next to that and perhaps in addition to that, I personally think that what separates companies, what differentiates them from one another, is their data. Because that’s what they own.

You can take everything else away. The people, the facilities — these things are all fungible. They’re transferable. You can build, borrow, buy, or steal all that stuff. But the two things you cannot do that to are intellectual property, which you have patents on, and your data. Your data is completely unique to you. And how many times have you and I had conversations with people where they saw the data as a cost center, a problem to deal with?

Andy Hoar

I think companies don’t recognize it as much as they should as an asset that needs to be invested in.

Brian Beck

It’s foundational. I’m even thinking about this as it relates to our own business here at Master B2B. What’s the most valuable thing we have? It’s the knowledge of what people are investing in, what they’re doing, what their priorities are, how they’re looking at their careers. All the things we learn running this large community of B2B e-commerce executives.

Andy Hoar

Without data, there’s nothing. And what we’ve known for ages has now kind of hit a lot of B2B companies square between the noses: if your data is in poor condition, it’s useless.

Bad data is almost worse than no data because bad data will cost you time and effort to make it into something. You’re almost better off — I say this flippantly — not having any data at all, because if you put the bad data in there, it’s going to create bad results that you’re just going to have to go back and fix later. Massive efforts are underway in B2B, and I think it’s worse in B2B than B2C for a whole variety of reasons.

Brian Beck

It’s complexity, right? The complexity of the applications, the amount of data, the technical aspects of the products, the compatibility, everything else.

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The Long Tail and the Trade-Off Problem

Brian Beck

What’s fascinating to me is this long tail. Practically speaking, you’ve got this big issue of data, and then AI — whatever AI is on its own — but then you’ve got all these long-tail issues. One of the things I used to struggle with as a VP of e-commerce was: okay, do I implement a new product recommendation engine? Little point solutions? Do I improve my checkout? Do I deploy something that’s going to help me in the store or with the sales team? How do I make decisions around this stuff?

Andy Hoar

You’ve got a dollar. You have to make a decision where to spend it. Some people were saying, “I’ll spend 80 cents on this and 20 cents on that.” Realistically, that’s probably what ends up happening. But you can also dilute it to the point where you’re spending a penny on something that’s not moving the needle. You’ve got to make some tough calls.

Without data, there’s nothing. And AI is an enabler. Now, you need the data to make AI work, but often now we’re seeing that AI is actually enabling the data to enable the AI.

Brian Beck

It seems like AI is getting baked into things. “Investing in AI” as its own line item isn’t necessarily the right framing — you invest in AI to do something specific. But a lot of those small things can end up being more important than the big things. I could take on five or ten smaller incremental efforts and it’ll have as much impact as one large initiative.

But data is so foundational it has to be invested in. And what I always struggled with on those big investments was not only knowing they were important, but getting the alignment of the rest of the organization. The CFO has to agree. And the CFO is going to say, “Well, what’s the ROI?” Defining the ROI of a big project can be challenging.

Andy Hoar

One of the things I would point out as a pretty necessary long-tail issue is attribution. Let’s say you do all this stuff, but you can’t prove the value of it because you can’t attribute it to any success. You spent money online and there were sales that took place offline, but you have no idea if one influenced the other. This is an age-old problem in B2B and frankly B2C. If you can draw that connection, it might unlock the ability to invest in a lot of different areas. But if you can’t spend any money on attribution, you can’t prove it.

Brian Beck

That’s right. That’s why I would do some of those smaller projects — because I could show direct ROI. A smaller project, still substantial change — like introducing a new product recommendation engine, which is a smaller investment of time and resources versus a PIM implementation or a replatforming or a massive data taxonomy effort.

Thomas Sowell, the economist, said it well: “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” And I have to totally agree with that. When I was a VP of e-commerce, I would have a defined bucket of capital dollars every year that I could spend on improving the digital experience. And I had to allocate that. Sometimes I would make a case for a discrete larger investment like an e-commerce platform, but it is very much about trade-offs.

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Business Priorities from the Regional Roundtables

Andy Hoar

The question is where do you start? Last year we spent the whole year doing regional roundtables, and we would ask people their priorities. The number one business priority we kept hearing over and over again was ROI of digital investments.

Brian Beck

That’s the same thing I’ve been saying. The ability to quantify the ROI points to the other priorities. Think about analytics and reporting, which came in at number three — that’s a way to measure your ROI. You need to have the analytics in place. Customer experience — both digital and cross-channel — was also one of the top priorities. Number four was product data. And then below all of that was technology, new and existing technologies.

The community has it right. They’re thinking first about the business aspects versus just rolling out technology for technology’s sake.

Andy Hoar

And by the way, the data thing is an interesting ROI question. What’s the ROI of data? How do you establish that, and what’s good enough? I remember years ago looking at research to figure out how many pictures, how extensive should the product description be for a PDP page. It’s not clear, although there is some research to suggest there’s an optimal number of pictures and an optimal length of a product description. If you have two pictures, that’s too few. If you have 75, that’s too many. I think the research suggested five to seven was optimal, but it depends on the product. If you’re at two, it behooves you to add more. If you’re at seven, the marginal value of adding content goes down at that point.

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Technology Investment Priorities

Brian Beck

We also asked about technology investments specifically, and the results were fascinating. Improvements and replatforming of the e-commerce platform was number one. Search was number two. Analytics was three. Personalization was four. Creative and design improvements to the digital customer experience was number five.

The fact that number one is platform continues to drive home the practicality. And this isn’t just replatforming — this is improving the existing platform experience.

Andy Hoar

That’s the key here. In the past, investing in the e-commerce platform usually meant rip and replace. That was a synonym for it. That is not the case as much anymore. Now it’s about enhancing the platform using what you’ve already paid for. We did a discussion about that at the summit where companies estimated they only use about 40% of their e-commerce platform. And in fact, some companies go out and buy point solutions thinking they don’t have that capability, not realizing it was actually not only available but pretty good — and they’ve already paid for it.

Community Poll Results

Brian Beck

We asked our LinkedIn community this week: B2B e-commerce execs, where are you putting your next dollar? We had four choices — that’s what LinkedIn limits you to. Our fourth choice, “something other than what we listed,” was the one that won at 33%. Cleaning up product data got 25%. Analytics tools and resources got 25%. Site search got 17%. But a full third said, “Hey, you guys — it’s something else, nothing here.”

I think that speaks to the long tail.

Andy Hoar

It does. We had 18 answers, and the “other” is the rest of the world — those 15 other answers where a bunch of people would probably answer 4 or 5 or 6% to each. So not surprised — it fits with what we’ve learned. This is the broader community, but it’s very similar: product data was the number one answer other than “other.”

It’s very clear that this is where people are investing, but there’s going to be a day of reckoning around this — are we getting bang for the buck on the money we’re spending to enhance our data? The CFO is going to hold us to that.

Brian Beck

Well, all right, folks. Thanks for joining today. We will see you next week on our next Friday 15.

Brian Beck and Andy Hoar just returned from ShopTalk Spring 2026 in Las Vegas — 12,000+ attendees, 700+ vendors, and the theme “Retail in the Age of AI.”

In this episode of Master B2B Friday 15, they break down what’s converging between B2B and B2C, what’s still fundamentally different, and why the gap between the two worlds is shrinking faster than anyone expected.

FAQ

Q: Why did Master B2B go to a B2C conference? A: Brian Beck and Andy Hoar attended ShopTalk Spring 2026 in Las Vegas — a 12,000+ person B2C e-commerce event — because the gap between B2B and B2C is shrinking rapidly. Research from Lloyd Insights shows 78% of B2B leaders say customers expect more digitized, consumer-like experiences. Millennials now make up 75% of the global workforce and are increasingly moving into B2B procurement roles. As Hoar put it, “Every B2B buyer is also a B2C consumer. It’s not like you watch a movie in color and then go back to watching in black and white.”

Q: What were the biggest similarities between B2B and B2C? A: Four major areas of convergence stood out. First, AI was the dominant theme — ShopTalk’s tagline was “Retail in the Age of AI,” mirroring B2B’s obsession. Second, AEO/GEO (answer engine optimization) was a major topic, with multiple sessions on optimizing for AI search. Third, the importance of digital experience remains central to both worlds. Fourth, operational efficiency — shipping, logistics, supply chain optimization — was heavily represented in both vendor solutions and sessions.

Q: What are the key differences between B2B and B2C e-commerce? A: Several significant differences remain. Speed of decision-making and risk tolerance is the starkest: B2C companies rapidly test new technologies while B2B demands use cases and ROI before acting. The customer relationship is fundamentally different — one B2B customer can equal thousands of B2C consumers, and a B2B “customer” like Caterpillar is really a holding company for many buyers, approvers, and end users. Digital marketing sophistication is far more advanced in B2C. Channel conflict still paralyzes many B2B companies while B2C has largely moved past it. And basic e-commerce functionality can still be a differentiator in B2B, while it’s table stakes in B2C.

Q: Is ChatGPT going to become a shopping channel? A: Not yet for transactions, but it’s already influential. At ShopTalk, session after session emphasized that while ChatGPT and other AI tools aren’t intermediating transactions right now, they’re heavily influencing the top of the funnel and early customer journey. Meta announced it’s introducing product reviews, recommendations, and augmented product details as part of the AI shopping journey. As Hoar observed, “They wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t know quantitatively that it’s influencing people’s purchases.” The hosts compared it to early e-commerce: everyone wanted to jump straight to transactions, but the real value started with research and information — and transactions followed years later.

Q: Why is channel conflict still holding B2B back? A: Channel conflict — the fear that selling direct or through new channels will upset existing distribution partners — remains a major barrier in B2B, while B2C has largely moved past it. Beck noted that many B2B manufacturers still refuse to sell direct because they’re afraid their distribution channel will revolt. Hoar cited Procter & Gamble’s experience: when P&G announced selling on Amazon, Walmart and Target threatened to pull their products. “Guess what didn’t happen? They didn’t pull the stuff from the shelves.” The lesson: distributors already have their own private labels, competitors are already selling direct, and living in fear of channel partners is no longer a viable strategy.

Q: Should B2B companies be using influencers and user-generated content? A: Yes, and they’re significantly underutilizing this opportunity. While ShopTalk was full of B2C influencers and content creators, Hoar argued this isn’t exclusively a B2C play — especially on the prosumer side. B2B companies like those Tim Lavender discussed at prior Master B2B summits are recruiting handymen and tradespeople to demonstrate product capabilities. The hosts believe B2B has a bias toward content being created through salespeople interactions rather than marketing, and that’s changing. However, B2B does have a trust advantage: in B2C, anyone with a camera can promote a product regardless of accuracy, while B2B requires trusted, verified information — especially when safety is involved.

Q: What happened with OpenAI’s Sora video generator? A: OpenAI shut down Sora, its AI video generation tool, despite having a billion-dollar deal with Disney and technology that could produce near-Pixar-quality video in weeks. The hosts believe OpenAI is refocusing resources on core computing capabilities, particularly as competition from tools like Kling intensifies. The engineering team that built Sora was reportedly repurposed within OpenAI. The shutdown — which would have seemed laughable just six months ago — underscores how rapidly the AI landscape is shifting and how unpredictable the winners and losers will be.

Q: What can B2C learn from B2B? A: Trust. Andy Hoar made a compelling closing argument that while B2B can learn speed, marketing sophistication, and customer experience innovation from B2C, the consumer world has a trust problem. B2C influencers frequently promote products without accountability or accuracy. In B2B, where an incorrect product recommendation could break a machine or endanger someone’s safety, there’s a rigorous trust framework around who’s authorized to recommend products. The ideal middle ground is somewhere between B2C’s “wild west” of content and B2B’s overly restrictive approach where only certified salespeople can discuss products.

PODCAST RECAP

Introduction

Brian Beck

Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. My name is Brian Beck. I’m here with Andy, my partner in this thought leadership series and community of e-commerce professionals in B2B. Andy, welcome to another Friday 15.

Andy Hoar

Yeah, good to be here. Got back from Las Vegas last night. It was 93 in Las Vegas and it was 37 in Chicago.

Brian Beck

Nice. Well, I drove up to Utah and it was 80 here. I’m in the mountains. What the freak? I don’t get it. But apparently, the whole West this year has been just awful with snow and it’s been really warm. Unfortunately the ski industry — they’re shutting down all the ski resorts. It’s not even the end of March. It’s well, it is the end of March. It’s crazy. That’s over a month before they usually shut them down. So, not great for our ski season. But of course, the East Coast got hammered with snow this year. So, I don’t know. All kinds of weird stuff happening, Andy, with weather.

So, we were in Las Vegas this week and that’s our topic today for our Friday 15. We’re going to talk a little bit about what the heck we were doing in Vegas land. But before we get to that, let’s do some breaking news.

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Breaking News: OpenAI Shuts Down Sora

Brian Beck

Andy, did you see this? This is fascinating. OpenAI is shutting down Sora, its AI video generator. The app, which many called creepy for how lifelike it felt, allowed conversations that mimicked real human interactions. While it was meant to explore AI companionship and mental wellness, users reported discomfort as the AI sometimes mirrored emotions or became unsettlingly persistent. The shutdown comes less than a year after operations, reflecting broader concerns around AI’s role in intimate human interactions. They had a billion dollar deal with Disney to use Sora, yet they still shut it down. What’s your take on this?

Andy Hoar

I think that says it all. I mean, let’s face it, they’re getting their ass kicked by Kling, and they need to focus on the core capabilities about computing. There’s so much opportunity on that side of the ledger that they’ve decided — and I think to their credit — to really focus on some stuff. They shut down some other businesses as well they had running.

Brian Beck

That’s true.

Andy Hoar

That said, this thing was pretty impressive technology. Billion dollar deal with Disney and that was just the starting point. Crazy.

Brian Beck

If you told somebody six months ago when we all saw this — I showed this video at events where they had almost Pixar-like capabilities that they built in a couple weeks, things that took years and hundreds of millions of dollars for Pixar to do. If we’d said, “Oh, guess what? Six months from now they’re going to throw the whole thing in the trash.” We both would have laughed.

Andy Hoar

Yet they did. Why not just sell it to Disney? I mean, they had a billion dollar deal or something.

Brian Beck

Yeah, I know. Probably though because the engineering team that built it — they’ve repurposed them within OpenAI to do computing stuff. I think it was too intricately tied to the engineering team. Why not sell this to a venture capital firm or sell it to Disney or give it to somebody and let them go play with it? I mean, it wasn’t producing a lot of revenue. I think I read it was only about one and a half million dollars in licensing revenue versus hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing revenue for ChatGPT, but still the potential was there and it’s a business. I think somebody’s going to call them and say, “Hey, can we buy this thing? Can we take it out of the dust bin and do something with it perhaps?”

Andy Hoar

Maybe. We’ll see.

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Why Were We at ShopTalk?

Brian Beck

Our topic today — we were in Las Vegas, Nevada this week for ShopTalk Spring 2026. For those of you who don’t know ShopTalk, it is a very large B2C e-commerce show. In fact, they get over 12,000 people at this thing. It’s enormous. There’s a huge show floor. It is really a leading venue for B2C e-commerce. So think about large retailers like your Macy’s of the world and large consumer brands and the folks that run their e-commerce business. That’s primarily who was at this thing.

We wanted to see what some of the similarities and differences are from B2B, which is why we joined the event. But really what spurred our interest was some of the data. Lloyd Insights found that 78% of B2B leaders say customers expect more digitized consumer-like experiences. Millennials are now the majority of B2B buyers — 75% of the global workforce. Those folks are increasingly moving into B2B procurement roles. Millennials make up 60% of their purchases online, up from 47% less than 10 years ago. Two-thirds of millennials make half or more of their purchases from Amazon. 97% use Amazon for at least part of their shopping. So you’ve got these digitized, native buyers.

Andy Hoar

Yeah, and the reality is — I’ve said this for years and I think you have as well — every B2B buyer is also a B2C consumer. It’s not like you watch a movie in color and then go back to watching in black and white and say, “Hey, this is great.” Once you’ve had the experience, once you taste a different kind of personalized, tailored experience — not all of it translates, let’s be honest. But we’ve always known that the more cutting-edge customer engagement takes place on the B2C side.

The old joke about everything starts in porn and gaming, then makes its way into B2C, and then eventually into B2B. But I think the timelines are so much shorter now that we wanted to be there to see what’s going on in B2C. Just like that Sora thing — six months ago people thought it was going to change the entertainment industry, now it’s in the toilet. These timelines are so short now that I don’t think we can count on “oh, it started in B2C, we’ll see it in five years in B2B.” I just don’t think for certain things that’s the case anymore. The gap between those two worlds is shrinking.

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ShopTalk Impressions: AI Everywhere

Brian Beck

The number one thing I noticed — even in the name of the show — AI, of course, was all over the place. The theme of the conference was “Retail in the Age of AI.” Well, doesn’t that say it all? Everyone’s thinking about this. As you think about the forward-thinking, risk-tolerant behavior of B2C companies, they’re embracing and testing things at an enormously rapid pace. That was clear from our time there. Not only represented by the people we saw and talked to who are in the B2C e-commerce operator space, but even the number of vendors. This hall was enormous — like 600–700 vendors. It was crazy.

Andy Hoar

It was everywhere you looked there was a vendor.

Brian Beck

The format of ShopTalk includes onstage talks, panel discussions, small meetup booths, and then this enormous trade show floor. What I’ve always enjoyed about the B2C side — I used to be in B2C as you know — is that you could walk the floor and find all kinds of tech and people pushing the envelope. Part of that is because retailers will actually test things and pay to test things, whereas B2B doesn’t as much. They’re more like, “Give me the use case, give me the ROI, give me the business case” — and two years later they’ll maybe test it. B2B is so conservative. B2C is out there doing things. What were your impressions of the vendor floor, Andy?

Andy Hoar

It was enormous. I saw a long tail of AI-focused companies, which you and I were joking about — how many of these companies will be gone in three years? But hey, it’s creative destruction. Some of them, if it follows the venture capital rule, one out of every 10 will be successful and nine will not. But I’d rather be looking at those companies so I get an early lead on the one that could make a difference in my business.

There’s such an advantage for the right circumstances to a first-mover advantage. I think there’s a natural bias in B2B to be a fast follower or even a slow follower, and there’s a reliance on this notion that “our customers have been with us forever, they have the appetite to wait, they’re patient.” Well, that’s an excuse a lot of times, because as soon as something better comes along or a competitor incorporates it, that’s a forcing function. I think these companies need to be more aware of what’s coming. They need to embrace things more. They need to try things more because these life cycles are really short and you could fall well behind.

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ChatGPT and the Influence Layer

Andy Hoar

Even B2C gets ahead of itself. This whole thing around ChatGPT a couple months ago where they announced they’re stopping the transactional side — that was perceived by most people as a failure. But some of this discussion at the show indicates that okay, there’s not as much transaction going on, which seems reasonable to me. But I heard it in session after session at this event: there is now a new area between a seller and a buyer where AI is involved.

ChatGPT may not be intermediating transactions right now or anytime soon. But ChatGPT and others are heavily influential at the top of the funnel or the early part of the customer journey. There was a lot of discussion about how do we optimize our presence there? How do we play in AI? Because it’s no longer the case that we can count on people using SEO or coming straight to our website.

Brian Beck

Absolutely. AEO — answer engine optimization, also called GEO — was a huge topic, multiple sessions. And we saw vendors that were serving that community, which again are all new technologies — how to track, how to optimize, et cetera.

Andy Hoar

Meta was at this event, and to the point earlier about where B2C got ahead of itself — this relationship is not going to be transactional, at least not right now, but it is going to be informational. Meta announced that they’re introducing product reviews, recommendations, and augmented product details as a part of this “shopping journey.” So they’re investing heavily in delivering that. Well, they wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t know quantitatively that it’s influencing people’s purchases.

It feels like the early days of e-commerce. Remember when everybody said, “We’re going to set up a website. We’re going to sell everything through it.” And the smart companies said, “Well, we tried that and people still want to touch and feel stuff in the store.” However, they’re using the website to inform themselves, to research — and eventually look where that ended up. There’s still a vast majority of buying in stores, but increasingly people bought more online to the point where Amazon’s the number one clothing retailer in the country. A couple years ago, people thought it was laughable that people would buy clothing online.

It follows a process, but you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I heard a lot of people say, “Well, ChatGPT is not going to be where people make purchases.” Yeah, that’s true. But ChatGPT and others are going to be highly influential about what people buy. So you’ve got to play in that space.

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Similarities Between B2B and B2C

Brian Beck

In terms of takeaways — things that were similar at ShopTalk to what we see at our B2B events and from our community:

AI is the focus everywhere — across the board, just as it is in B2B. We heard it at our summit. It’s also on the B2C side — from operational perspectives through top-of-funnel awareness through personalization and optimizing e-commerce experiences.

AEO and GEO and changes in search marketing — that was apparent and very similar between the two worlds.

The importance of digital experience — clearly a longtime focus of B2C, and increasingly critical in B2B.

Technology solutions overlap — Andy and I saw many similar companies or the same companies that are at our B2B events also at the B2C show. A lot of the e-commerce platforms, search platforms, and operational efficiency solutions — shipping and logistics — were represented in both worlds.

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Key Differences

Brian Beck

Speed of decisions and risk-taking. You can’t support a hall of 800 or a thousand vendors if your audience isn’t buying and testing new solutions. B2B doesn’t adopt as quickly. Our B2B folks are very conservative. That remains a very stark difference between the two.

The customer is fundamentally different. One customer in B2B equals a thousand or 10,000 customers in B2C. These companies have databases of millions and millions of customers, the big ones. When I was at Harbor Freight Tools, we had three million customers. The same size company in B2B might have 10,000 customers. So there’s a big difference there in how you’re servicing them, and it has implications for loyalty and retention.

Andy Hoar

And what’s a B2B customer? In B2C, it’s a one-to-one relationship. Macy’s sells to Brian Beck. But in B2B, it’s Grainger selling to Caterpillar. It could be multiple divisions of Grainger, but it’s going to be many people at Caterpillar. Caterpillar is a customer, but it’s really a holding company for a series of customers. That’s why personalization is really a different animal in B2B — what are you personalizing for? The person making the purchase, the person authorizing the purchase, the person who’s going to use the product?

Brian Beck

Digital marketing sophistication. It always strikes me at these B2C conferences how many different ways there are to do customer acquisition. They’re testing email, SMS, all the social media aspects — they really push the envelope on how they acquire customers in ways that B2B doesn’t. We’re still talking about e-commerce as a lead gen source in B2B, where B2C is doing all kinds of things with text messaging, databases, cookies — just a whole other level of marketing.

Functionality as a differentiator. In B2C, a lot of companies have moved to Shopify and standard functionality is table stakes. You’re not even in business without it. But in B2B, you could just implement e-commerce and already be a differentiated business based on the basic functionality. That’s how far behind many B2B companies are.

Andy Hoar

There’s an over-reliance on product in B2B — like, “Oh, if we just implement this, we’ll build it and they shall come.” I’ve not really found that to be the case because you can build, borrow, buy, or steal anything these days. But you are right — so many of these companies are so far behind that it’s a differentiator for their business internally, not externally.

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Influencers and User-Generated Content

Andy Hoar

One thing I thought was interesting — we saw a lot of influencers and content creators walking around. My first instinct was this is not a B2B thing. That said, I don’t know if it isn’t a B2B thing, especially on the more prosumer side of things.

Yes, it’s taken to an extreme. We have these people walking around trying on makeup and then going on their channels promoting it. But I think there is a role to be played for user-generated content in B2B. Remember a couple years ago Tim Lavender mentioned they’re now recruiting handymen and all sorts of folks to demonstrate capabilities.

I think B2B is underutilizing their customer network to do this kind of thing because they don’t see it as appropriate — they still see a lot of this interaction as being done through salespeople, whereas in B2C it’s being done through marketing. There aren’t salespeople in B2C, so you market to people and create content to do that. I think B2B still has a bias toward “our content is created by our salespeople in the form of an interaction where they talk about their kids and take the order.” And I just think that is changing.

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Channel Conflict: B2C Has Moved On

Brian Beck

Channel conflict is a thing of the past in B2C. B2B is still completely hung up on this. It prevents action at many of these companies. “We’re worried about what our distribution is going to do. We’re worried about what our sales team’s going to do if we launch e-commerce.” Come on, guys. We’ve got to modernize here.

Andy Hoar

You can’t live in fear of your customers. When Procter and Gamble announced they were going to start selling stuff online and through Amazon, Walmart and Target got upset and said, “We’re going to pull your stuff from our shelves.” They issued all the threats. And guess what didn’t happen? They didn’t pull the stuff from the shelves.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Everybody finds a way to make it work. But what Walmart did is they went private label. So there is a reaction to these things, and it’s a business case argument. You’ve got to decide. But you’ve got to do what’s in your own best interest. Too many brand manufacturers will not sell direct because they’re afraid their channel is going to engage in an uprising against them. Guys, that’s already happening. Distributors already have their own private labels.

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What B2C Can Learn from B2B: Trust

Andy Hoar

There is one thing I noticed — there was a lot of discussion at ShopTalk about where I think B2C can perhaps learn something from B2B. And it’s about trust.

All those content people out there — a lot of them are making stuff up. There’s no way to know what’s real and not real. If you try some lipstick from some influencer — unless there’s lead in the lipstick, it won’t kill you. It just might look weird. But in B2B, if somebody says, “Hey, this part’s great. You should try it,” and it breaks the machine and somebody dies — there’s a trust component there.

But there’s got to be some middle ground between the wild wild west — where anybody who’s got an internet connection and a camera can talk about a product — and “no, we only have exactly these people who have to be authorized and certified to talk about these things.” That’s where B2B is. There’s something in the middle, and B2C has to come back to that, and B2B has to move forward to that.

Brian Beck

Yeah, no question. There’s a lot to learn from each side. Good stuff. I’m glad we went, Andy. It was exciting to be there at ShopTalk, and we look forward to continuing the conversation around this whole convergence between B2B and B2C.

Thank you everybody for listening. We’re going to see you next week on our next Friday 15.

AI was supposed to lighten your workload. So why is everyone working harder?

Bloomberg reports 40% of worker time is freed up by AI. But new research shows something troubling: after AI adoption, email volume is up 104%, messaging is up 145%, and nothing decreased. Only 3% of workers are in the “productivity sweet spot.” And when Master B2B polled their community, 67% said AI means they’re doing MORE work, not less.

In this episode of Master B2B’s Friday 15, Brian Beck and Andy Hoar dig into one of the most important questions facing B2B leaders: Is AI creating real productivity — or just more production?

FAQ

Q: Is AI actually making people more productive? A: It’s complicated. A 2026 State of Workplace report found that after AI adoption, every single work category increased — email volume up 104%, messaging up 145%. Nothing decreased. The promise of doing less with AI is not showing up in the data. However, for specific tasks, AI can deliver significant time savings. The key distinction is between production (doing more) and productivity (doing the same quality work in less time). As Andy Hoar framed it at the Master B2B summit: “If you’re producing more but the quality isn’t as good, that’s production, not productivity.”

Q: What is the AI productivity “sweet spot”? A: Research shows that only 3% of workers are in the productivity sweet spot — those who spend 7-10% of their time using AI tools. They show the highest productivity gains. Meanwhile, 57% of workers spend less than 1% of their time with AI, likely due to the learning curve. Andy Hoar compared it to racing at the Indy 500: “The smart drivers go the fastest when required. But if all you do is put the pedal to the metal the whole time, you’ll run out of gas.” Strategic, targeted use of AI produces disproportionate gains; too little use is ineffective, and too much creates diminishing returns.

Q: What’s the difference between production and productivity? A: This was a central debate at the Master B2B Mindshare Summit. Brian Beck and Andy Hoar define productivity as doing the same or better quality work in less time. Production is simply doing more, regardless of quality. The example from the summit: an executive said she could produce far more press releases using AI. When asked if the quality was the same, she said no. That’s more production, not more productivity. The critical question for companies is: what’s the objective quality standard, and are you maintaining it while increasing output?

Q: Is AI making some workers lazier? A: There’s evidence of this. Research from ActivTrak found that the share of workers “at risk of disengagement” — defined as underutilized at least 75% of the time — rose from 19% just after ChatGPT’s release to 23%. Some workers are using AI to do their work faster and then coasting. Brian Beck noted this shows up in the quality of work visible on LinkedIn and in email, where AI-generated content is obviously lower quality but the person producing it may believe they were “really productive today.”

Q: What does the Meta layoff announcement mean for B2B companies? A: Meta is reportedly planning to shrink its workforce by 20% (from 80,000 to 64,000 employees), which would drive revenue per employee from $2.2 million to $3.5 million. Analysts estimate this could generate 3-5% earnings per share upside in 2026. Notably, the stock price went up on the layoff news — a reversal from historical norms. At the Master B2B summit, Brian Beck asked his audience how many thought AI would reduce headcount at their companies, and every single person raised their hand. However, the hosts noted that B2B companies may face a different reaction than tech companies when announcing AI-driven layoffs.

Q: How is Apple’s AI strategy different from everyone else? A: While Google, Amazon, and Meta are spending $135-200 billion each on AI infrastructure, Apple is spending comparatively very little — low double-digit billions. Yet Apple reportedly generated $1 billion in AI revenue, primarily by charging other companies (like OpenAI for ChatGPT subscriptions) a toll to access its ecosystem. As Brian Beck put it, “Good to be Apple. When you have the ecosystem and you control the gate, let people in the gate, but they got to pay for it.”

Q: Does quality always matter when using AI? A: Not always — and that’s an important nuance. Andy Hoar made the point that in some work categories, quality matters significantly and AI-generated output that falls short is genuinely harmful (like sloppy LinkedIn content or poor customer communications). But in other categories, the quality standard is lower and AI can deliver both more production and real productivity gains. The key is knowing which category your work falls into. Where quality matters, humans must remain the judge and editor. Where it doesn’t, AI can drive both volume and efficiency.

Q: What does the community say about AI and workload? A: In a Master B2B community poll, 67% said AI means they’re doing more work, and only 33% said it lightens their workload. Both hosts confirmed this matches their personal experience. Brian Beck described filling freed-up time with additional work rather than working fewer hours. Andy Hoar added another layer: even when AI lowers the bar to do a task yourself, it may not be the best use of your time — describing how he used GPT for legal work and saved money on a lawyer, but questioned whether that was really the highest-value use of his own hours.

PODCAST RECAP

Friday 15 with Master B2B — AI, Productivity, and the Future of Work

Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. I’m Brian Beck, here with my partner Andy in our thought leadership series on B2B e-commerce and digital leadership. Andy joins us from Chicago, where the weather has been characteristically chaotic — 32 degrees on Thursday and 70 today. We experienced the same whiplash at our Master B2B Mindshare Summit last week, where it was snowing at 28 degrees one day and 72 and sunny the next.

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Breaking News: Meta’s AI-Driven Layoffs

We kicked things off with a Reuters exclusive reporting that Meta is planning sweeping layoffs as AI costs mount. Meta’s workforce could shrink by as much as 20% — from 80,000 down to 64,000 employees — which would drive revenue per employee from $2.2 million up to $3.5 million. Analysts suggest a layoff of this magnitude could drive 3–5% earnings per share upside in 2026 and 4–7% in 2027, provided the savings are redeployed into AI innovation.

This sent shockwaves through the tech world, especially given that Meta has been aggressively recruiting top AI talent — some individuals receiving pay packages reportedly worth hundreds of millions, with one reportedly valued as high as a billion dollars over time with stock options. Now they’re announcing a potential 20% workforce reduction. The theory of AI’s promise is being put to the test.

What’s striking is how the market responded. There was a time when layoff announcements sent a company’s stock price down. Now it goes up — and in this case, before the layoffs have even happened. When you’re spending $135 billion on data center infrastructure this year alone, and planning $600 billion by 2028, you simply can’t fund both people and infrastructure at that scale. Google is spending $180 billion on AI, Amazon $200 billion. These companies have made their choice.

One interesting counterpoint: Apple is spending comparatively little on AI infrastructure — low double-digit billions — yet reportedly generated $1 billion in AI-related revenue, largely by charging others a toll to access their ecosystem. About 80% of that appears to be subscription revenue from ChatGPT. Apple may be letting everyone else learn on their dime and simply controlling the gate. Whether that strategy holds long-term remains to be seen.

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Is AI Creating Productivity — or Just More Work?

This brings us to the central question of today’s Friday 15: Is AI actually making people more productive, or is it just causing us to do more work — and at lower quality?

A Bloomberg article reported that AI is freeing up 40% of worker time, calling for an urgent redesign of job roles. But the picture is more complicated than that headline suggests. Research from ActiveTrack found that the share of workers at risk of disengagement — defined as being underutilized at least 75% of the time — rose from 19% just after ChatGPT’s release to 23%. In other words, some workers are simply using AI to do less, submitting fast, low-effort output and calling it done. We’ve all seen it on LinkedIn.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Wall Street Journal reported that AI isn’t lightening workloads — it’s actually making them more intense. As ActiveTrack’s Chief Customer Officer put it, it’s not that AI doesn’t create efficiency; it’s that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing more work. This is Parkinson’s Law in reverse: if you can do something in two minutes instead of two hours, you just do it now — and then move on to the next thing. The appetite grows with the eating.

A 2026 State of Workplace Report bears this out. After AI adoption, every single work category increased — email up 104%, messaging up 145%. Nothing decreased. The promise of doing less with AI is simply not showing up in the data.

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The Productivity Sweet Spot

Interestingly, the same report found that only 3% of workers are in the true productivity sweet spot: those who spend 7–10% of their time using AI tools show the highest productivity gains. Think of it like a race — the smart drivers know when to put the pedal to the metal and when to hold back. Use AI too little (under 1% of the time, where 57% of workers currently fall) and you miss the gains. Use it too much and you burn through your fuel without winning the race.

Strategic and tactical use of AI produces disproportionate gains. You have to invest enough time to learn how and where to use it — and then apply it with discipline.

When we asked our LinkedIn community whether AI lightens their workload or just creates more work, 67% said they’re doing more work. Only 33% said it lightens their load. That tracks with our own experience.

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Production vs. Productivity — A Critical Distinction

At our Mindshare Summit, a peer panel raised a question that really cuts to the heart of this: Is AI driving productivity, or just production?

One marketing communications professional shared that she’s now able to write far more press releases and produce far more content than before. But when asked whether the AI-generated content was the same quality as her own writing, she said no. So the question becomes: if you’re producing more but at lower quality, are you actually more productive? True productivity should mean maintaining quality standards while doing more in less time — not simply generating more output of diminished quality.

There’s also a delegation paradox at play. AI lowers the bar to get things done, which sounds good — but it means you may spend time doing tasks yourself via AI that you really should be handing off to someone else. And then you find yourself doing legal research with GPT when you probably should have been focused on higher-value work and let someone else handle it.

The good news is that human judgment still has a critical role: deciding what quality standard is required, what’s worth doing more of, and what genuinely matters. In cases where quality doesn’t matter much, AI can increase both production and productivity. Where quality is paramount, using AI as a crutch is a bad decision — and audiences are starting to notice.

A Fortune 200 company searched for itself in Gemini — and didn’t show up at all. Could that be you?

Gartner projects traditional search volume will drop 25% by end of 2025 as buyers shift to AI-powered answer engines. And in a Master B2B community poll, 67% of B2B professionals say they’re already using answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude for work-related searches instead of Google. The shift isn’t coming, it’s already here.

In this episode of Master B2B’s Friday 15, hosts Brian Beck and Andy Hoar are joined by Andy Didyk, CEO of Ntara, to break down agentic commerce, the data transparency dilemma, and what B2B companies must do right now to stay visible in a zero-click world.

FAQ

Q: What is agentic commerce? A: In the strict definition, agentic commerce is AI agents autonomously making purchases on someone’s behalf — agent talking to agent or agent talking to a website to complete a transaction. But as Andy Didyk of Ntara explained, the broader and more immediately relevant definition encompasses people using answer engines as a significant part of their purchasing process and decision-making. It’s similar to how “e-commerce” became an umbrella term covering merchandising, fulfillment, warehouse management, and more. The immediate concern for most B2B companies isn’t autonomous purchasing agents — it’s the fact that buyers are already using ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to research and evaluate products before they ever visit a supplier’s website.

Q: Why are B2B companies invisible to AI answer engines? A: A major reason is that much B2B product data is locked behind password-protected sites. Many distributors and manufacturers require login credentials just to view basic catalog information, pricing, and availability. Answer engines can only index what they can access — and when they can’t see your data, they’ll substitute information from competitors who do make theirs available. As Didyk put it, “By withholding information as an organization, you’re actually doing a disservice to your clients” because the engines will find something to fill the gap regardless.

Q: Is there really a “content arms race” happening in B2B? A: Yes. Andy Hoar framed the key question: if AI engines don’t have your information, they’ll find it from your competitors. Didyk agreed there’s a strong case for this metaphor, but added an important nuance — it’s not just about showing up, it’s about the accuracy of the information. Many current AEO tools measure whether you’re mentioned, but they don’t evaluate whether the engines are representing your product specifications correctly or whether the data is current. That accuracy dimension will become increasingly critical.

Q: How fast is the shift from traditional search to answer engines? A: Extremely fast. In the Master B2B community poll, 67% of respondents said they’re already using answer engines over traditional search for work-related queries. Didyk predicted that number would be 80/20 within weeks. Gartner projects traditional search volume will drop 25% by end of 2025. Brian Beck shared that ChatGPT’s own model predicts answer engine queries will exceed traditional search by 2029. And critically, as Didyk observed, “Those who have gone to answer engines don’t go back.”

Q: What practical steps can B2B companies take right now? A: Didyk recommended several starting points: develop a practice or center of excellence around AI search visibility, start monitoring how your company and products appear in answer engines by simply querying them yourself, identify “hidden data treasure troves” within your organization that could be surfaced to give engines more context, release product information that’s currently locked behind password walls, and ensure the data you’re providing isn’t just present but accurate and current. The key insight is that it’s not just about being mentioned — it’s about whether the engines are representing your products and specifications correctly.

Q: Should B2B companies be worried about releasing pricing and product data publicly? A: This is the fundamental tension. B2B companies have historically been reticent to share pricing, inventory, and brand information publicly due to competitive concerns. But the zero-click environment changes the calculus dramatically. As Andy Hoar pointed out, in traditional search Google could show multiple URLs and companies could choose whether to share data. In a zero-click answer engine environment, the engine picks a winner — and it’s unlikely to pick a company that withheld pricing and availability information. The competitive advantage of showing up in AI results may finally tip the scale toward transparency.

On the Friday 15, Andy & Brian talk to Optimizely’s Trevor Pope about whether practitioners should think about AI initiatives in terms of their impact on costs or their impact on revenue. (You might be surprised to hear that it can be both…)

FAQ

Q: Should B2B companies prioritize using AI to save money or make money? A: According to the Master B2B community poll, 41% said making money is the top priority, 30% said saving money, and 27% said improving customer experience. However, as Andy Hoar observed, “Making money is the reason people start the process. Saving money is why they renew the process.” The revenue side is harder to attribute, while cost savings are much easier to prove with straightforward A/B testing.

Q: Where are B2B companies actually seeing AI cost savings? A: The biggest savings are coming from team efficiency — specifically enabling non-developers to do work that previously required expensive specialists. Trevor Pope shared that companies are using AI to write code for website experiments, run SEO/GEO analysis, and handle results interpretation without hiring outside consultants or waiting for developer resources. One key finding: individual people are now able to run entire experimentation programs that previously required larger teams, with companies seeing around 25% savings in people’s time on specific tasks.

Q: Can you give a real example of AI generating revenue in B2B? A: Pope shared that a midsize distributor increased sales by $250,000 in just 90 days by using AI-powered experimentation to optimize their product detail pages. The key insight was about shipping — their customers’ purchasing decisions were driven not by product price but by shipping costs and delivery timing. By optimizing how shipping information was presented (and even inflating product prices while lowering shipping costs), they won significantly more sales. They never would have discovered this without systematic experimentation.

Q: Why is the enterprise-wide productivity impact of AI so much lower than task-level gains? A: According to Wharton research cited in the episode, generative AI shows average labor cost savings of 25% for specific tasks, but the enterprise-wide impact drops to just 5%. Andy Hoar argued this is the enterprise’s fault, not AI’s — companies are plugging AI into existing processes without rethinking how they work. As he put it, “People are not changing how they work. They just plug in the AI and it makes a marginal to no difference because they’re not thinking differently about how to use the technology.”

Q: What does the data say about AI-ready companies vs. laggards? A: BCG found that AI-ready companies achieve five times the revenue increases compared to laggards. Additionally, 82% of top-performing companies target growth and innovation with AI, whereas only 50% of average companies do. BCG also estimated that companies successfully scaling AI across revenue-generating functions see revenue increases of up to 10%.

Q: How is Optimizely using AI differently than traditional A/B testing? A: While Optimizely has offered experimentation tools for over a decade, their current AI capabilities (powered by Gemini) go well beyond traditional A/B testing. Their AI tool, Opal, combines general AI intelligence with Optimizely’s proprietary marketing data to suggest experiment ideas, recommend variations based on past performance, prevent duplication of failed tests, and — critically — analyze results automatically. The analysis piece is especially valuable because interpreting test results has historically been the biggest bottleneck in experimentation programs.

Andy and Brian are joined by eCommerce expert Howard Blumenthal to talk about how companies should think about the value of their AI initiatives.  Howard lays out a useful set of questions for preparing for new AI projects:

1. Are we looking at the right workflows for AI?
2. Are we measuring the right things?
3. Is our data ready?
4. Do we have a governance plan?

Plus, learn how B2B eCommerce leaders are approaching the 4 hottest AI categories.

Q: What is the current failure rate for enterprise AI projects? A: The numbers are sobering. According to data cited in the episode, AI projects have an 80% failure rate and are two times more likely to fail than traditional IT projects (per RAND Corporation). Only 5% of enterprise AI pilots currently deliver measurable impact, and just 1 in 10 proof of concepts ever reach full-scale production. Gartner predicts 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by 2027.

Q: Why are so many AI projects failing in B2B? A: Three major factors were identified. First, data unreadiness — Gartner predicts 60% of projects fail because data is too noisy or siloed. Second, the “black box trust gap” — 51% of organizations have stalled deployments due to hallucinations and inaccurate outputs. Third, the “hype trap” — 30% of generative AI projects are abandoned post-proof-of-concept due to escalating costs. As Howard Blumenthal put it, “E-commerce uncovers all the sins of a company. AI does that on steroids.”

Q: What are the four key questions companies should ask before starting an AI project? A: Howard Blumenthal’s framework centers on four questions: (1) Are we looking at the right workflows for AI? AI works best on high-volume, repetitive tasks. (2) Are we measuring the right things? Focus on outcomes, not outputs like how many emails or graphics were produced. (3) Is our data ready? You don’t need to clean everything — just ensure the data within your specific use case is solid. (4) Do we have a governance plan? The most successful model combines top-down structure with bottom-up flexibility for departments to experiment.

Q: What is “AI creep” and why is it a problem? A: AI creep is when employees start using AI to venture outside their core competencies — a content writer starts doing graphic design, a graphic designer starts writing code. While AI makes this feel possible, MIT research shows that the time people spend on these tangential tasks can consume all the efficiency gains from their core work. The solution is ensuring the right people are doing the right tasks and maintaining human-in-the-loop oversight across departments.

Q: What are the four “hot categories” where B2B companies are seeing real AI wins? A: Blumenthal identified four areas delivering results: (1) Search — using semantic and vector search to improve product discovery beyond basic keyword matching. (2) Personalization — but tailored for B2B needs like reorders, cross-sells, and quotes rather than following B2C behavioral patterns. (3) Pricing — adding AI layers to existing BI tools, with companies seeing 2-5% margin improvements. (4) Operations — supply chain forecasting, demand planning, and order exception handling, which benefit from AI’s strength with high-frequency, repetitive tasks.

Q: Should B2B companies focus on ROI or experimentation with AI right now? A: According to the Master B2B community poll, 56% said both broad experimentation and driving ROI are important. But among those who chose one, experimentation outpaced ROI by 3-to-1 (33% vs. 11%). Blumenthal agreed, comparing it to the early days of e-commerce: “People need to get a grasp of it. They need to start using it so they can actually understand it. But you can’t do that forever — you have to start to pick and choose the items that will give you ROI.”

Q: How is the AI moment similar to the early days of e-commerce? A: Multiple parallels were drawn. Like early e-commerce, companies are measuring the wrong things (hits vs. outcomes). Like e-commerce, pushing too hard for immediate ROI on infrastructure investments is premature. And like e-commerce, the real breakthrough won’t come from copying existing processes more efficiently — it will come from rethinking how the business operates entirely. Andy Hoar compared it to the steam engine-to-electric motor transition: “It took 30 years for companies to figure out they got to change how they approach things. And when they did, we got the assembly line.”

Q: What was the breaking news about Genuine Parts Company? A: Genuine Parts announced it will separate Motion (industrial distribution) and NAPA (automotive parts) into two independent public companies. The combined entities represent approximately $24 billion in revenue. The move is driven by activist investors who believe the parts are worth more than the whole — a growing trend as software and AI reduce the back-office synergies that previously justified combining companies.

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Andy and Brian are joined by Andy Goodfellow, SVP and Chief Technology Officer at Zoro, to discuss why there has historically been friction between the IT departments and eCommerce teams at so many companies.

Goodfellow shares how Zoro turned this dynamic on its head by aligning everyone on a singular goal – creating value for the end customer.  Plus, he gives some great advice about not confusing internal stakeholders with external customers.

Q: Why do IT and eCommerce teams often clash?

A: They are measured on different outcomes.
IT is rewarded for stability, security, uptime, and risk reduction. eCommerce is rewarded for speed, growth, experimentation, and revenue.

These goals aren’t wrong—but they create friction when not aligned.

Q: Is this really a technology problem?

A: No. This is a people, process, and governance problem, not a platform problem. Most conflicts come from unclear ownership, misaligned incentives, and poor communication.

Q: What is the biggest root cause of conflict?

A: Different definitions of “success.” IT defines success as no outages, no security incidents, no surprises. eCommerce defines success as faster launches, better UX, higher conversion. Without shared KPIs, each team believes the other is blocking progress.

Q: Why does eCommerce feel “stuck” waiting on IT?

A: Many organizations still treat eCommerce as a back-office system, not a revenue channel. When eCommerce is governed like ERP:

Release cycles are slow
Change requests pile up
Innovation gets deprioritized

Q: Why does IT resist rapid change?

A: IT teams see security risks, performance risks, integration complexity, and compliance issues. They are protecting the business—but often without understanding the commercial urgency.

Q: Who should own eCommerce?

A: Business should own strategy. IT should own architecture and guardrails. eCommerce must be a shared business capability with clear decision rights.

Q: What governance model works best?

A: A product team model, not a project model.

That means: Cross-functional squads (IT, eCommerce, UX, data); Ongoing roadmaps, not one-off projects; Business outcomes tied to technology decisions

Q: How can companies reduce friction immediately?

A: Start with three actions:

Create shared KPIs (conversion, revenue, uptime, deployment speed)
Align business and IT roadmaps
Establish clear decision rights

Q: What role does leadership play?

A: Executives must force alignment.

Leadership must define: Who owns digital growth? How success is measured? How tradeoffs are resolved?

Q: Is this problem unique to large companies?

A: No. Small and mid-sized manufacturers and distributors face the same issues—just with fewer resources and less structure.

Q: What is the right relationship between IT and eCommerce?

A: “Partners with different jobs, but the same destination.” When both teams understand the goals, risks, and customer impact, conflict turns into collaboration.

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In this Friday 15 episode Andy and Brian talk with Rob Howl, the Vice President of Digital Products and Experience at HVAC parts distributor mSupply about how the company is approaching building out Answer Engine Optimization capabilities.

Q: What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)?
A: AEO is the practice of optimizing your content so that AI-powered engines like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude cite your brand as the authoritative answer to user queries — rather than simply ranking you in traditional search results.

Q: How is AEO different from SEO?
A: As Rob Howl put it on the show, “SEO gets you seen, AEO gets you chosen.” SEO focuses on ranking in traditional search engine results pages. AEO focuses on becoming the embedded answer in AI-generated responses — a zero-click environment where there may be no link for the user to click at all.

Q: What is E-A-T and why does it matter for AEO?
A: E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s the framework AI engines use to determine which sources to cite. Content without demonstrated authority gets ignored, and misinformation gets penalized.

Q: What practical steps can B2B companies take right now?
A: Key tactics include building FAQ sections with concise 50-75 word answers to common customer questions, creating structured Q&A content sourced from your technical experts’ real-world interactions, ensuring clean product data with normalized attributes and clear descriptions, and using tools like SEMrush to score your AEO readiness.

Q: Is SEO dead?
A: No. Rob Howl emphasized this is an “and” situation, not an “or.” SEO still matters, but AEO is now an additional, critical discipline. As he noted, “You can’t just do one or the other. You got to be able to do both.”

Q: How do you measure AEO success without clicks?
A: This is still an evolving challenge. Rob suggested an A/B testing approach — optimizing a subset of SKUs with AEO techniques while leaving others as SEO-only, then comparing lift. Tools like SEMrush are beginning to offer AEO readiness scoring, but full attribution solutions are still emerging.

Q: How fast is this shift happening?
A: Very fast. In a Master B2B community poll, 83% of respondents said their company has already shifted resources from traditional SEO toward AEO. Gartner predicts a 25% drop in traditional search engine queries by 2026.

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The Friday 15 episode examines whether AI is becoming an oligopoly, focusing on the emerging “protocol wars” between major tech companies and the implications for B2B e-commerce.

Q: What is the main topic of this episode?
This episode explores “The Paradox of Trust in the Age of AI” – examining how AI is impacting trust in B2B relationships, why transparency matters more than ever, and proven strategies for building and maintaining customer trust in an era where AI can manipulate information and create uncertainty about what’s real.

Q: Why does trust matter so much in B2B commerce?
The research presented shows that trust has direct, measurable business impact:

• Trusted brands are 1.6X more likely to receive personal data from customers
• Users are 5.5X more likely to make major purchases if they trust the underlying AI technology
• 40% of consumers will stop doing business immediately after a single trust violation
• When customers rate an AI system as highly transparent, they are 8.5X more likely to express high trust in the brand

Q: What are the four pillars of building trust?

1. Transparency – Be open about both strengths and weaknesses. Companies that admit areas where they’re not perfect become more believable in everything else they claim.
2. Honesty – Avoid twisting facts and figures, especially easy in the AI era. Proactively update content for both real and perceived accuracy.
3. Consistency – Show up and deliver every single time. As Tom Brady said, “I wasn’t the greatest quarterback… but I was the most consistent guy.”
4. Quality – Build trust into your actual product or service. All the marketing means nothing if the product fails to deliver on the brand promise.

Q: What does “production over potential” mean?
This phrase comes from Kurt Cignetti, Indiana’s football coach who won the national championship with “zero star recruits.” Andy explains it means prioritizing people who have consistently delivered results over those who merely have impressive credentials or upside potential. In hiring, would you take someone who’s delivered for 10 years or someone with amazing credentials who’s never actually done it? This applies to trust – track record matters more than potential.

Q: What is the luxury paperweight story mentioned?
Brian references a story from a few weeks earlier where someone created a completely fake luxury paperweight company to test whether they could fool AI engines into thinking it was a real business. They succeeded, demonstrating how AI can be manipulated to present false information as legitimate, which is a core trust challenge in the age of AI.

Q: How do you maintain trust once you’ve built it?
The hosts identify three essential actions:

1. Demonstrate Follow-Through – Do what you say you’ll do, and go a little bit farther. Give customers slightly more than they expected. The Zingerman’s Deli philosophy: “We just understand what customers want and we go the extra mile.”
2. Acknowledge Vulnerabilities – When you make mistakes, admit them fully and upfront. Get everything out at once. The “drip-drip-denial” approach causes far more damage than immediate, complete transparency. As the saying goes: “The first rule of finding yourself stuck in a hole is stop digging.”
3. Show Up in Difficult Times – It’s easy to be present when things are going well. True loyalty is earned when you help customers solve their big problems when they’re struggling.

Q: What happened with the Tylenol crisis of 1982?
This is considered a textbook case of crisis management. Tylenol products were contaminated (causing deaths), and the company responded by:

• Fully acknowledging the issue immediately
• Recalling 31 million units
• Being completely transparent about what happened
• Taking full responsibility

Remarkably, research shows that Tylenol actually built MORE brand loyalty through this crisis than they had before it occurred. People were more likely to buy Tylenol after the incident than before, demonstrating the power of transparent, accountable crisis management.

Q: What is Amazon’s blood pressure monitor story?
Andy shares a personal experience that demonstrates Amazon’s long-term customer value thinking. He and his wife ordered a blood pressure monitor scheduled to arrive at 12:00 PM. When it was late, Andy texted to ask for an ETA. It arrived at 12:18 PM – just 18 minutes late. Andy texted back to say it arrived and everything was fine. Amazon immediately refunded the entire purchase, insisting on it even when Andy said it wasn’t necessary. This shows Amazon’s calculation: a small gesture now maintains a Prime customer who will spend tens of thousands of dollars over time.

Q: Why does Amazon succeed at trust in e-commerce?
Brian explains that Amazon is “laser focused on the buyer” and consistently exceeds customer expectations. They prioritize the customer above all else – which B2B suppliers selling on Amazon often don’t understand, as they’re used to different dynamics with distributors and resellers. Amazon’s communication, speed of delivery, and willingness to go the extra mile (like the 18-minute refund story) build deep trust through consistent execution.

Q: What happened with Wells Fargo’s fake accounts scandal?
Brian shares a personal experience where he and his wife discovered numerous accounts opened in their names that they didn’t authorize – each with about 50 cents in them. This was part of Wells Fargo’s employee training program where representatives opened fake accounts to meet quotas. The scandal was made worse because Wells Fargo initially denied the problem before eventually admitting it. This violated multiple trust principles: the initial breach, then the denial, creating a “disconnect” between what they said (being trustworthy) and what they did. Brian notes Wells Fargo has since fixed these issues.

Q: What is Grainger’s trust strategy?
Grainger’s mantra is “we’re the guys that help you get things done.” They build trust through reliability – when your machine breaks, they’re there; when you need a part, they’re there. This customer service and fulfillment focus needs to be institutionalized everywhere in the company, not just in some places. You can’t be trustworthy selectively.

Q: Will we see “human verification” badges in the future?
Andy predicts that within the next couple of years, we’ll see verification systems emerge, especially for critical information. For example, medical advice from AI might say “this has been verified by our panel of doctors consisting of…” while unverified information might carry a disclaimer. This addresses the growing challenge of distinguishing AI-generated content from human-verified expertise.

Q: Why will human relationships become MORE important with more AI?
Brian highlights the counterintuitive insight that “the more we use AI, the more we’re going to value the human verification and the individual interactions that we have.” As AI creates uncertainty about what’s real and what’s manipulated, human interaction, relationships, and personal verification actually become more valuable than ever before. Trust increasingly depends on human touchpoints.

The Friday 15 episode examines whether AI is becoming an oligopoly, focusing on the emerging “protocol wars” between major tech companies and the implications for B2B e-commerce.

Andy and Brian discuss Apple’s $1 billion deal with Google for AI technology and analyze the competitive landscape of AI foundation models.

FAQ:
Q: What are “protocol wars” in the context of AI?
A: Protocol wars refer to the competition between different technical standards for enabling commerce through AI chatbots. OpenAI launched ACP (with Stripe) in September 2024, while Google announced Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) with partners like Shopify, Target, Walmart, and Etsy at NRF 2025. These protocols enable shopping and transactions directly through AI interfaces like ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Q: Why did Apple pay Google $1 billion for AI technology?
A: According to the hosts, Apple Intelligence (released in 2024) has been considered a failure. Rather than continuing to develop their own AI technology, Apple chose to license Google’s Gemini AI to power features like Siri. This represents a significant strategic shift and an admission that building competitive AI requires massive resources.

Q: How much are companies investing in AI infrastructure?
A: The eight major players in the AI space are collectively spending approximately $3 trillion on infrastructure, people, and resources. This investment is staggering compared to Google’s entire search business, which is valued at around $300 billion. The massive capital requirements create significant barriers to entry.

Q: Who are the major players in the AI oligopoly?
A: The episode identifies eight primary companies: Google (Gemini), OpenAI (partnered with Microsoft), X/Grok (Elon Musk), DeepSeek (Chinese company), Claude (Anthropic), Perplexity, Amazon (Titan), and Meta (Llama). Amazon and Google are also investing in multiple companies beyond their own AI models.

Q: What is the current market share distribution in AI chatbots?
A: ChatGPT dominates with 68% of the AI chatbot market share (down from 85%), while Google Gemini has grown to 18%. Other players including Perplexity, Claude, and others make up the remaining market share. However, in traditional search, Google still commands 78% while ChatGPT has captured 17% of search queries.

Q: What does “oligopoly” mean in this context?
A: According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis definition cited in the episode, an oligopoly exists when five firms in an industry control more than 60% of total market sales. This is compared to a monopoly (one company with total control) and a duopoly (two companies, like FedEx and UPS). The AI market already shows oligopolistic characteristics.

Q: How does this affect B2B e-commerce companies?
A: B2B companies need to understand where their customers are searching and how they’re finding products. As search behavior shifts from traditional Google to AI chatbots, companies must optimize for AEO (AI Engine Optimization), decide which protocols to support, and potentially prepare for AI interfaces to become the primary customer experience—similar to how Amazon disrupted product search.

Q: Do B2B companies have any advantages in this AI transition?
A: Yes. Brian Beck notes that many B2B companies have invested heavily in authoritative content about technical applications, use cases, and complex product information. This depth of expertise and content may work to their advantage as AI models prioritize authoritative, comprehensive information sources.

Q: When will AI-powered commerce affect B2B significantly?
A: While B2C companies are racing to adopt these protocols immediately (for consumer purchases through chatbots), B2B adoption is still emerging. However, the hosts emphasize this is “over the horizon” rather than far-off—B2B companies need to pay attention now to avoid being left behind, just as many were slow to adopt Amazon as a sales channel.

Q: How many foundation AI models do the hosts predict will survive?
A: Brian Beck predicts fundamentally three dominant models with excess capacity resold through other providers (similar to the telecom industry structure). Andy Hoar agrees it will be limited—perhaps four to five—due to the enormous infrastructure investment required. A community poll showed opinions split roughly equally between 2-3, 4-5, and 6+ models surviving.

Q: Will AI become regulated like telecommunications?
A: The hosts suggest that if only three major foundation models emerge, some level of regulation is likely. The comparison is made to historical utilities like telecommunications and railroads, where massive infrastructure requirements led to natural oligopolies that eventually faced regulatory oversight.

Q: What should B2B leaders do now?
A: Key actions include: (1) Monitor where customers are searching and how behavior is shifting, (2) Understand and potentially prepare to support the emerging commerce protocols (ACP and/or UCP), (3) Continue investing in authoritative, comprehensive content, (4) Optimize for AI Engine Optimization (AEO), and (5) Consider how AI interfaces might eventually displace traditional e-commerce experiences.

Q: Is this just a temporary competitive phase or a permanent shift?
A: The hosts draw parallels to other infrastructure-heavy industries (telecom, railroads, airlines, film studios) where high barriers to entry led to permanent oligopolistic structures. The $3 trillion collective investment and the technical requirements suggest this will result in a lasting oligopoly rather than a temporary competitive phase.

OVERVIEW OF HOW TO RE-BUILD YOUR HIRING PROCESS

We’re joined by Kevin Stone, Senior Vice President of Technology & Procurement at Motion Industries, to talk about how AI has changed the hiring process.

While it’s gotten way easier to create the perfect resume when applying for a job, it’s gotten equally more challenging for hiring managers to figure out whether what’s on a resume actually represents a candidate’s experience.

Kevin walks us through how he vets candidates and what he’s learned about hiring in this new era.

FAQ

General Questions About AI in Hiring

Q: Has AI made the hiring process better or worse for B2B companies?

A: According to a Master B2B community poll, 78% of respondents said AI has been a bad thing for the hiring process. Kevin Stone agrees, stating it has “muddied the waters” and “introduced more bad than it has good.” However, he believes this will change as technology improves and enterprises demand better solutions.

Q: How are companies using AI in recruitment?

A: According to LinkedIn, 90% of recruiters expect to increase their use of AI in hiring in 2026. Companies are using AI to screen resumes, rank candidates, and identify key attributes that match job descriptions.

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The Challenges

Q: What’s the main problem AI has created in the hiring process?

A: AI has made it easy for job seekers to create perfectly polished resumes, making it difficult to distinguish between genuinely qualified candidates and those who have simply used AI to exaggerate their capabilities. As Kevin notes, “all the resumes are so well written, they’re so tightly curated” that the cognitive load on hiring managers has increased significantly.

Q: How many applicants are companies receiving now?

A: Kevin mentions that frontline managers are now looking at 270+ applicants for positions, which is overwhelming for recruiters to handle at scale.

Q: What has AI intensified in job seeking?

A: According to Resume.io, 66% of job seekers believe AI has significantly intensified job competition by enabling more people to find and apply for the same positions more quickly.

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Kevin Stone’s Approach to Hiring

Q: What position is Motion Industries currently hiring for?

A: Motion Industries is searching for a Vice President of E-Commerce to help grow their digital presence at an outsized rate. They’re looking for someone who can manage strategy, dive into technical details, breathe the right culture into the team, and isn’t afraid of “big hairy audacious goals.”

Q: How does Kevin use AI as a hiring manager?

A: Kevin uses AI in several ways:

• Asking AI how much of a resume was written by AI to assess genuine creativity
• Setting a “context window” with the job description and cultural requirements, then analyzing resumes against those criteria
• Identifying gaps in knowledge, skills, and abilities that need further exploration
• Getting to “leading indicators much more quickly”

However, he emphasizes: “You don’t ever take any of that at face value.”

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Evaluating Candidates

Q: How does Kevin capture intangibles like grit and leadership that AI can’t measure?

A: Kevin states there’s “no technology substitute” for these qualities. His approach is old-school: having direct conversations with candidates about:

• What shaped them
• Their previous mentors
• How they took learnings from failures and applied them to future successes
• The material details of their experiences

He can identify gaps in their stories by recognizing when candidates miss important steps in describing their experiences.

Q: Why is trust and verification more important than ever?

A: As Andy notes, “truth and trust matter more now probably than they ever did.” Kevin emphasizes the need to “trust but verify” – ensuring candidates actually have the business and technology acumen they’ve represented on their AI-polished resumes.

Q: How important are professional networks in the hiring process now?

A: Kevin says networks are “almost even more important than before” generative AI came forward. He relies on trusted partners in his network to verify that candidates’ experiences are real, noting “it sure does help to verify through trusted partners or trusted resources that those experiences are real.”

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The Future of AI in Hiring

Q: Will AI’s role in hiring improve?

A: Kevin believes it will change for the better. He expects enterprises will demand that HRMS and recruiting tools improve to handle the “flooding” of applications and provide “distilled value.” As Andy summarizes, we’re going through a maturity curve, and something effective will emerge “in the middle.”

Q: What’s the balanced view on AI in recruitment?

A: Andy provides perspective: “There’s no way we won’t be using AI as a part of the recruitment process. But there’s also no way we’re going to have unfettered AI hiring people. So there’s going to be something in the middle that will emerge.”

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Key Takeaways

Q: What’s the most important advice for hiring managers using AI?

A:

1. Never take AI output at face value – always verify
2. Use AI to get to leading indicators quickly, then apply professional judgment
3. Have real conversations to capture intangibles
4. Leverage your professional network for verification
5. Remember that technology can’t substitute for human qualities like grit and perseverance

Q: What should job seekers know about AI in hiring?

A: While AI can help polish resumes, hiring managers are now specifically looking to see how much AI was used. The ability to tell authentic, detailed stories about your experiences with all the important steps included is more valuable than a perfectly written resume.

OVERVIEW OF HOW TO DIGITALLY ENABLE YOUR SALES TEAM:

Adrienne Hartman, EVP of Marketing at JJ Keller, discusses aligning sales and e-commerce teams in B2B. She emphasizes channel-agnostic strategies where sales reps receive credit regardless of how customers purchase—through websites, e-procurement, or direct contact.

JJ Keller runs 14 marketing websites, hosts 300 annual events, and is implementing a customer data platform to accelerate lead delivery to their 600+ sales reps.

Key strategies include eliminating channel conflict through aligned incentives, automating journey-based marketing, focusing on AEO through review sites like G2, and tracking buying signals to alert sales in real-time.

FAQ

Who is Adrienne Hartman and what does JJ Keller do?
Adrienne Hartman is the Executive Vice President of Marketing at JJ Keller, where she’s worked for 18 years—17 years leading e-commerce directly and the past year leading the overall marketing organization. JJ Keller helps businesses comply with government regulations (Department of Transportation, OSHA, Department of Labor) through physical products, online solutions, and professional services including consulting and managed services.

How is the marketing organization structured at JJ Keller?
E-commerce is part of the marketing organization. Marketing also includes a sales academy that trains new sales talent over four months (which also generates leads), and an inbound sales team that handles inquiries from websites, catalogs, and direct response materials. Adrienne has a peer who manages the main sales organization of over 600 sales representatives.

What’s the key to aligning sales and marketing teams?
The sales leader is Adrienne’s closest ally—they talk every day. The marketing team is aligned to support sales rather than compete with it. The fundamental strategy is being channel-agnostic and ensuring sales reps get credit for orders no matter where they’re placed—whether through JJ Keller.com, e-procurement systems, Amazon, or any other channel.

How does JJ Keller eliminate channel conflict?
For assigned accounts, sales reps receive credit regardless of where the order is placed—whether through the website, e-procurement punch-outs, or any other method. This removes the feeling that e-commerce is “stealing” sales from reps. The internal marketing message emphasizes that digital channels help reps “make sales even when you’re on vacation” by handling busy work.

What is JJ Keller’s digital footprint?
They operate 14 marketing websites supporting different business aspects and cloud products, run a store on Amazon and other marketplaces, and host approximately 300 events annually (both webinars and in-person events around the country). Their main site serves as both a direct transaction vehicle and a lead generation tool for sales reps.

How do the in-person events work?
JJ Keller hosts events nationwide for industry professionals—for example, 90 transportation professionals in Atlanta learning about regulatory changes. Sales reps attend these events (though they limit the number due to having 600+ reps), and both sales and regulatory experts present. Marketing drives traffic and attendance to these events digitally.

What technology upgrades is JJ Keller implementing?
They’re currently selecting and implementing a customer data platform (CDP) and modern marketing automation system. This will enable more intelligent journey-based marketing, allow sales reps to send personalized messages through the system, and most importantly, get qualified leads to sales faster to prevent them from “collecting dust.”

Why is lead delivery speed so important?
The longer leads sit unused, the less effective they become. When sales reps at a major show like the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) don’t receive leads until 10 days after the event ends, those leads are cold and have lost their impact. Research shows the first company to respond to an RFP wins the business 67-70% of the time.

How does JJ Keller handle e-procurement integrations?
The marketing/e-commerce team handles all e-procurement integrations and punch-out connections (like Coupa or Ariba) so sales doesn’t have to figure out those systems. They provide sales reps with “cheat sheets”—if a customer mentions certain keywords, reps simply call the e-commerce team who handles the technical implementation.

What is JJ Keller’s AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) strategy?
They focus on the fundamentals that worked for SEO, which also impact AEO. Additionally, they’re emphasizing review sites like G2 because answer engines give significant weight to these platforms and user-generated content. Notably, they’re NOT pursuing a Reddit strategy, which is a deliberate choice.

What are the most impactful digital tools for sales teams according to the LinkedIn poll?
57% said AI-enabled prospecting tools (the top choice), 29% selected better CRM and e-commerce integration, 14% chose cross-channel sales incentives (considered table stakes), and 0% selected pricing tools—likely because marketing typically doesn’t own pricing in most organizations.

What does Adrienne see as the biggest opportunity going forward?
Buying signal tracking—using the “digital dust” customers leave behind to alert sales reps in real time when hot prospects view content online. This allows timely follow-up and can’t be done manually with spreadsheets. It requires AI and ties into their CDP implementation and CRM/e-commerce integration efforts.

How does JJ Keller balance direct sales versus lead generation?
Their digital properties serve dual purposes. JJ Keller.com processes direct transactions but also generates leads for high-consideration items. Customers can request free product samples online, sign up for events, or engage in ways that trigger sales follow-up. The goal is supporting whatever buying journey the customer prefers while generating qualified opportunities for sales.

What’s the key cultural shift needed for sales and marketing alignment?
Moving from viewing each other as competitors (the “boxing match” mentality) to viewing the relationship as an alliance. Marketing should see itself as supporting sales with tools, leads, and processes that make their jobs easier—not as a separate channel competing for the same customers. This requires both structural changes (like credit allocation) and daily collaboration at leadership levels.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian Beck
Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. My name is Brian Beck. I’m here with Andy Hoar, my partner in our Master B2B series. Andy, welcome to 2026. We’re kicking it off with a great topic. Welcome to Friday 15. Andy, yeah, and new music. Well, I knew music to boot. Yeah, we’re going to, we’re going to keep it, keep it fun and exciting this year. We’re going to do a lot this year of integrating, you know, people, people from our community, into our Friday 15 sessions. We’re really excited about that, and we’ve got a great session today. But of course, before we we get to that, we need to, we need to go to our the your aching news. Love saying it that way. Andy, did you see this? This is absolutely hilarious. This guy set up. It’s and a little scary. This fellow set up an AI misinformation experiment. He built a company, right? So he a luxury paper weights company. It’s a fake product, $8,000 luxury paper weights. He wanted to see how llms This is all related to AEO agentic engine optimization, or optimizing for showing up in the search results or the results of queries posed to chat GPT and other ones. And he set up this company which would basically, you know, supposedly, sell these luxury paper weights, and he fooled the llms. In other words, he created this whole fake thing, and the llms picked up on it, and they thought it was real. And he had did a whole bunch of things like posting and Reddit and medium and a bunch of other places. He put up a website. He put up a FAQ, and what it’s fascinating is because in AI search, what he found is the most detailed story wins, even if it’s fake. AI productivity tools are being used as answer engines in a world where anyone can spin up a credible looking story in an hour, it’s PR but for machines that can’t tell who’s lying. I mean, he was showing up as a legitimate he had Elon Musk and other influencers fake commenting on these. This, these paperweight products. This is fascinating and scary, because the whole thing was fake, but, but the the llms thought it was real, over time, the more he the more content he added, would you any reactions? Is fascinating?

Andy Hoar
Well, it just shows you there’s no real guardrails around any of this right now, which in the creative stages. People say, that’s fantastic. We don’t want to curtail anything. That’s all wonderful. Except that when reality sets in and people set up fake sites, and then it just promulgates the fakeness and the falsehoods all around the world. And then certainly people turn around and go, Wait a minute. We can’t tolerate this. But then you start looking at what the the solution to it is, and then the solution some The Cure sounds worse than disease. Like, oh, let’s have an independent body that would verify this stuff. It’s like, well, who’s going to run that right? Then that’ll slow things down. But there has to be something in here to verify that people are really posting these things. And you see, like verification mechanisms in other realms. You know, LinkedIn does it. There’s a way credit bureaus do these things. There’s a way to do this. So, but, yeah, I think, I hope this is a querying call to the industry that this is going to get worse if they don’t do something about it.

Brian Beck
Well, how is it any different than what you know, Google, right? I mean, the sense that people can fool Google too with, you know, but you know, in the world of Google, in the history of Google, you know, getting ranking in Google would be thing you know, you you’d benefit from, from links from like Edu or.gov sites and like so. So Google had some, some level of, you know, authority checking. But this, this whole world of of AEO, is changing so much and so fast, and it presents opportunities, both for, you know, good companies that are legitimate, you know, good actors, but also companies that aren’t right that you know. Think about this. What if a competitor comes in and starts, you know, creating, you know, false stories about about your brand as a, as a legitimate B to B manufacturer, for example, and talking about, oh, they just went out of business, or whatever, you know.

Andy Hoar
I mean, this, you can destroy somebody’s reputation. I mean, these are, these are all just very scalable and very powerful tools that can be used for good or for ill, right? And, I mean, there were stories like last year about how intelligence, Chinese, for example, had been using anthropic to they trick anthropic, which is the Claude system. They tricked them into believing that they were helping to protect a website by identifying the vulnerabilities in the website, when, in fact, what they were doing was exactly what they said, which is identifying the vulnerabilities in the website. So they used quad to hack into a bunch of sites, and Claude sells is a useful idiot in the process. So and then. Course, when they saw that, they changed their methodology. But it does kind of beg the question, why did they prevent that to begin with? So yes, we will live and learn on this stuff, but we get worse before it gets better.

Brian Beck
Yeah, anyway, we’ll continue to follow. It’s fascinating. So today we’re talking about digitally enabling the sales team in 2026 and you know, Andy, for years, companies have sort of ever since the introduction of E commerce, companies have struggled with a sort of tension between sales teams, who have had relationships for a long time with customers, and E commerce sort of taking that business away, right? So are we just sort of shifting from one channel to another? Are we disintermediating channels? Sales teams have have long hated e commerce as a as a competitive channel in their business. And you know, so there’s just been this tension. And what the fact that matter is, though it’s it’s not the reality of how B to B, buyers actually customers want to interact. In fact, Gardner came out with a study that showed that all the way through the purchase journey from problem identification all the way through buying and even referral afterwards. They’re using both channels, B to B. Customers are and particularly now that millennials are the bulk of buyers, they’re using both channels, digital and physical, in the buying journey almost equally, right? So you’re seeing

Andy Hoar
what’s interesting about this is back in the day, because I was there when this was taking place. The group that was having a problem with this was the sales team. They were the ones who said, No, e commerce isn’t being used along the way. We’re the ones helping them at the beginning, or we’re the ones closing at the end. And the reality was both groups were operating interchangeably throughout the journey. But the news at the time was that E commerce was such a factor, right? So I think that’s kind of sort of been baked into the cake at this point. I think both groups understand then, but there still is a zero sum mentality about some of this.

Brian Beck
Yeah, there is. Well, things are, things are changing. Andy, I mean, companies. This is a study that, for those who can’t see it, I’m showing a study from Forrester research that was done last year that showed that 82% of C suite leaders say physical sales teams and marketing teams who usually run e commerce are aligned. 41% say they’re highly aligned. So we’re seeing much more sort of, you know, the organization actually embracing this and understanding that the customer really should come first, and the customer is one that you know should drive this and not, not internal legacy thinking. In fact, McKinsey has come out and said 85% of B to B companies expected hybrid sellers, meaning digitally physical sales teams that are enabled with digital tools to be the most common role in a sales organization. So, so they’ve even put a name on it. McKinsey has and so this is a real thing. And you know, when we see, when we see things like this, we like to go to our community and ask and involve them in in in this discussion. So we we have the one of our superstars in the in the community today joining us on our Friday 15, Adrienne Hartman. Miss Adrienne Hartman is the Executive Vice President of Marketing at JJ Keller. We’re going to ask her what that is, but the most important thing is She’s a, I think, a seven time winner of our case, I don’t know what is it? Adrian, five time winner, three times. Oh, there it is. There’s the trophy.

Adrienne Hartman 8:19
I don’t know how many it is, but every time we talk, I get one more.

Brian Beck
Adrienne, tell us about JJ Keller and what your role is there.

Adrienne Hartman
Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So JJ Keller helps businesses comply with government regulations. Think about Department of Transportation, OSHA, Department of Labor. We have physical products, we have online solutions, and we have professional services, managed services, consulting, that type of thing. So a lot of different areas that we’re focusing on to help our customers. I’ve been at the company 18 years, 17 of those years leading e com directly, and the last year leading the overall marketing organization. So a little bit of a unique perspective on this. And e commerce is part of the marketing organization in our company,

Brian Beck
perfect, and you don’t manage sales. You have a peer that manages or oversees the sales function, correct, correct.

Adrienne Hartman
I have a peer who manages sales. However, we do have some components of sales that are in marketing. For example, we have a sales academy that brings in new sales talent and trains them up over a period of four months. We train them to be a high performing sales representative during those four months, and they are a lead gen machine during that that time period as well. Interesting. Yeah, and our inbound sales team is also part of marketing, so the the people who are answering the. The inquiries from the websites and from the catalogs and some of our direct response materials as well.

Brian Beck
So everything we shared in the beginning, in the last couple of minutes, I think, based on our conversations, Adrian, I think a lot of those issues are, you know, you’ve experienced, right? I mean, tell us kind of where you guys are from, from that standpoint, what have been some of the most effective things that you’ve seen in terms of aligning sales and marketing?

Adrienne Hartman
Yeah, so I don’t view that that that boxing match. Actually, our sales leader is my closest ally. He and I talk every day, and I have very close relationships with his first line of staff as well, and my team, my marketing team, is actually aligned to help support them. So we’re viewing ourselves with a couple of different lenses, and one of those being Yes, we are all here for our customers and for the overall organization. So we’re trying to drive some direct sales. Absolutely, we run our store on Amazon and on marketplaces. We run JJ keller.com which is both direct transactional vehicle, but is also a lead gen vehicle for those sales reps for some of the higher consideration items, it’s also a place where for some items, customers can say, request a free product sample, and then sales would follow up with them on that. It’s a place where customers can find some of our 300 events we do both online and in person around the country every year. Sign up for that again, strong lead gen vehicle for sales. We actually run, I mentioned JJ color.com but we have 14 marketing websites supporting some different aspects of our business and some of our cloud products as well. So that’s a pretty strong digital presence that we have out there, and we’re doing many different things to drive customers to those sites again, both to make some direct transactions, but also for lead generation. And I think one of the most important things that we did very early on is we made sure for an assigned account that the sales rep gets credit no matter where the order is placed. So if the order comes through JJ keller.com if the order comes through E procurement, punch out any way the customer wants to place that order, that rep is getting credit so they don’t feel like they’re fighting it. And part of our whole internal marketing campaign and push is basically you can make sales even when you’re on vacation. This is this engine is here, working for you, taking some of the busy work out of getting orders in the system.

Brian Beck
So I was just gonna say comment on something. You said engine. You said 300 events. So you’re doing. What are the are these webinars? What are they?

Adrienne Hartman
They’re a lot of webinars. But we also have in person events that we host all around the country for professionals in our industry. We had, I actually attended one in Atlanta in December. We had 90 transportation professionals in the room learning about what’s happening in the regulatory space, where these professionals are working every day, and then we’re also exposing them to some of our products and services. And then then sale sales is in attendance at those meetings as well. A number of sales people. We have over 600 sales reps, so we really, actually have to limit how many of them are at each of these events, but the the speaking at the event is done both by sales and by one of our regulatory experts.

Brian Beck
And digital you’re driving, you’re driving the leads to those events, right? So the traffic, the attendance. Cool, go ahead Andy, absolutely yes.

Andy Hoar
So in the history of this kind of relation between sales and E commerce, you know, we’ve seen ebbing and flowing. We see some companies get it better than others. It sounds like you have a pretty mature relationship and amicable relationship with your team, but here’s the question I have for you. You said any way our customers want to buy? When I’ve seen this in the past, what I’ve seen is companies decide how they want customers to buy from them, as opposed to allowing the customers to tell them how they want to buy from them. How have you negotiated that? Have you navigated that so that you really are deferring to the customers, as opposed to, oh, the sales team wants to touch them this month because they have a promotion coming out. But do we know if the customer wants to be touched this month by the sales rep?

Adrienne Hartman
I will say when it comes to how the customer places an order, we truly are channel agnostic. We want however the customer. Wants to do business with us. We want to be there for them. And one of the things that we’ve done is as a marketing e comm side, we have made it easy to do e procurement integrations and punch out integrations. We take that work on for sales, so sales doesn’t need to figure out how to work in Coupa or Ariba. We do all that for them, we’ve given them a whole bunch of basically cheat sheets. If a customer says any of these words, pick up the phone and call us, and we’ll take it from there. So we’re really trying on that, on the touching we actually are currently working on implementing a customer data platform and overall marketing automation system. This is something we’ve been working on, actually, for the last few months, selecting a tool. We’re nearing the end of that selection, and then we’re going to be implementing this. And the customer data platform, along with the new, more modern marketing stack, is going to allow us to better have all of that marketing outreach, whether that be rep generated, because ideally we want that. We want a rep to be able to send a personalized message through the system, that then maybe precludes us from sending something else. But we also want, really to have more intelligent journey based marketing. And ultimately, we want to get those leads, the right leads to sales faster, so that they can follow up with customers in a really timely manner.

Andy Hoar
So what happens? Sorry, Brian. So, so what happens when those leads don’t get to the sales reps in a timely fashion?

Adrienne Hartman
You know, the longer a lead collects dust, the less effective it is. And we know this, and we’re currently running on some old manual processes, which is why we were able to move forward with getting approval for the buy in, for upgrading the systems on this. And sales isn’t happy if, if they have reps at a big Sherm Society for Human Resources Management. If we have sales at a big show like that, and they’re not actually getting the leads in their queue until 10 days after the show ends, those leads are cold. They’ve lost their impact. And that’s that’s when sales isn’t happy with me. That’s when that’s when they definitely rightfully so, will raise concerns to us, and that’s part of what we’re trying to do better.

Brian Beck
Adrian, we talked at the beginning of this a little bit about some stuff that’s happening with AEO, with agentic engine optimization, you know, sort of the getting yourself showing up in those search results. I mean, that’s to be a part of something you’re thinking about for generating leads for your sales team, right? And supporting your sales team. What are you guys doing in that area every day?

Adrienne Hartman
Well, a lot of the a lot of the AEO signals are the same as the things that impacted SEO for years. So if you have a site or websites that are strong in SEO, they should be strong in this. However, as you indicated, a lot of what we’re seeing as well is that the answer engines are giving a lot of weight to user generated content. So we’ve taken another angle as well as spending more time and focus on review sites. For example, we’re not doing the whole going down the Reddit path. But thinking about sites like g2 because g2 and those other type of review sites, those do get a lot of credibility in answer engines. Interesting. So no Reddit, this is a strategy. You’re right.

Brian Beck
So we need to get your reaction. We just got a couple minutes left here to our LinkedIn poll. So we asked our community, Adrian on LinkedIn, what are the most impactful digital tools or strategies you can give to your sales team? 2026 really interesting was just to that last point. Number one was selected. Was eight I enabled prospecting tools. 57% said that. People also weighed in. Said that better CRM, E, comm integration, which goes to your platforming discussion earlier. 29% said that then cross channel, sales incentives. 14% that seems to be table stakes. Nobody said pricing tools, which was interesting. What’s your reaction to this? Do you agree?

Adrienne Hartman
I think that these are the right areas to be focusing and I think that the reason why people didn’t vote for the pricing tools is because in our roles, we typically don’t own pricing. I do think that a big area for us to be focusing on, and something that I am looking at as well is really that buying signal tracking, so being able to let sales know that a hot prospect was viewing this content online, and letting them know that quickly so that they can follow up. We have so many clues as people leave their digital dust around, and for us to be able to collect all of that and be more informed. Formed in what we let sales know so that they can act on it in a timely way. That and that all ties into AI, because you sure can’t do that manually with spreadsheets. That that’s what I think the big winner is.

Brian Beck
And it ties into the CDP you’re deploying, and that CRM, e com integration all that, but now, well. Adrian Hartman, thank you very much for joining us today, as always, your amazing insights. I learned so much when we talk with you. So thanks for Thanks for being part of our Friday 15 this week.

OVERVIEW OF THE BIGGEST B2B ECOMMERCE STORIES OF 2025:

In this year-end episode, Brian and Andy examine the three seismic shifts that defined 2025.

First, they dissect the tariff turbulence that created widespread panic in early 2025, exploring why dire economic predictions never materialized and what the surprisingly resilient GDP growth means for manufacturers and distributors.

Second, they tackle the employment crisis facing white-collar workers, where AI has created a “no hire, no fire” environment that’s particularly devastating for recent college graduates while skilled trades workers remain in high demand.

Finally, they analyze the death of traditional SEO and the rise of answer engine optimization, as search volume faces a projected 25% decline with buyers turning to AI-powered tools instead of clicking through to websites.

TRANSCRIPT:

Good morning everyone this is The Master B2B Friday 15. My name is Brian Beck. Welcome to another session of Friday 15. And in fact, the last one of 2025. Andy, did you see this? Nike Nike eliminates their CTO and COO. So, chief commercial officer, chief technology officer. Nike made a bold move and the implications go far beyond a shuffle at the top. The company cut two cornerstone CC suite roles and installed a new operating model signaling a deeper strategic reset. No more CCO, no more CTO. What the heck, Andy? What do you think?

Well, the interesting part about this, this is a B2C story. Well, Nike does a lot of B2B as well. Not to be underestimated, but I think this is perhaps an omen in a way. >> It’s a sign of things to come because Nike basically declared that technology is no longer a separate thing. It’s now embedded in lots of different parts of the organization. Now, it’s easy to do that when you’re not a technology company, per se, and that’s what they’ve kind of admitted. They’re a consumer packaged goods company that sells clothing and shoes, etc., But couple years ago they were talking about how they were a technology company and this might be a bit of an admission that they use technology but they aren’t a technology company and this might be interesting for other B2B companies to take a look at especially in the age of AI. We’ve often said AI as with digital needs to be distributed across the organization. I think Nike actually decided to do that. We’ll see if it works for them. There’s another a whole bunch of stories behind this. But that’s what I find fascinating about this story is that they’ve decided to decentralize the technology function. 

Well, the other interesting thing about Nike is they have they have set the precedent for B2B and really for even for BtoC. I mean the amount of sort of direct e-commerce taking control of these channels really embracing um you know not you know really leaning on the fact that they make a great product and as a manufacturer and and and understanding they don’t you know the channel is just a channel to the end customer and they want to be the best they can be in every channel including their own direct e-commerce you know this this is something that a lot of manufacturers in B2B haven’t even you know we have these conversations we’re issuing some thought leadership on this early in the year we’re talking about direct e-commerce for manufacturers and should they do it or not and you know this is still a debate well Nike sets the precedent and is this another area where they’re setting a precedent and you know we’ll find out as we get into into the new year.

There is one other side story here which might be turned to be even more interesting in the end is that not only did Nike do this but they got rid of this chief commercial officer and now the the Nike.com so the digital and the sales team both report to you ready for this the CFO. Now, that might have been one of those musical chairs thing and the last person sitting was the CFO and they this person got that stuff, But it could also point to that now they’re applying higher level of scrutiny on the ROI front to this stuff especially digital because I think there’s a sense that a lot of companies overspend on digital which again what’s overspending but it feels like they brought the CFO in to say okay now I want to see a payback.

Interesting. So we’re looking into the future folks just watch Nike. I love it. No it’s great. It’s it’s really interesting and I I I love watching B2C companies particularly on the manufacturing side and what they’re doing. Because again lots of precedent there for where B2B is going in in many ways. So all right we got to get to our topic today which is the biggest stories of 2025. What are they Andy? Is it all about AI? Well we’ll reveal it in just a moment everybody. So this is our opinion of course we have we didn’t submit this to the greater panel for debate. This is just Hanny and I think so.  but anyway, it’s it’s going to be gonna be some fun here. Some fun topics. So, the first question is first topic tariffs. Tariffs were huge beginning of this year and they still are. But I mean, remember Andy back in the first quarter of the year towards the end of that first quarter, beginning of second, how much turmoil was created? The world is going to fall apart and implode. The economy will never recover. We’re immediately going to go into a recession. Well, what’s interesting is this Wall Street Journal article, I think, says it well. You know, did people just get it wrong? Their title was why everyone got the tariffs wrong. And what they said some some interesting quotes from this article, I’ll read them for those of you who can’t who are listening. The numbers show that the US economy has held up throughout the year. The odds of a recession in the coming year, meaning 2026, have fallen below 2020 or 25%. By the way, this article was this week,  December. tariffs have t haven’t tanked the economy. In fact, GDP in the second quarter reached its strongest quarterly growth in nearly two years a seasonally and inflation adjusted annual rate of 3.8% and the third quarter is tracking closely behind at 3.5. So, the economy didn’t tank the way everyone thought it would. And there’s lots of other statistics in here now, but there’s also we know that there’s still a lot of uncertainty amongst our community of B2B e-commerce and you know manufacturer distributor executives. You know, Andy, what’s your take on this? Did did everyone get the tariffs wrong? 

I think there’s a longer story here. The time horizon is too short. We saw it early this year on our roundtables. People were saying things like one week, I’m scared to death. we had to shut everything. We had to shoot every had to stop everything. Shut everything down. We’re not selling it to certain countries right now. Terribly disruptive. Then two weeks later, mostly because the administration changed his mind or lowered the tariffs, whatever, we’d see different people at a different round table and they’d say, “Oh, yeah, we were worried about that two weeks ago. We don’t care about it now.” So, I don’t know that there was really a definitive policy. 

That’s one argument. The other argument is that there’s a lag time here and that this is going to have an impac early next year. Now, there’s stuff you can do to juice the economy, but it’s very clear that people predicted gloom and doom about the tariffs destroying the economy. Whatever you think about whatever that didn’t happen actually. So the economy has continued to grow. It could also be that the economy is just hyperefficient. I mean it bakes these things in. It knows what to expect. 

Algorithms and AI are constantly adjusting things, moving it around. So it’s softening the impact. That’s another argument. 

Well, it was interesting. I was sitting with a one of one of our members of our community earlier this week and we’re talk we were reviewing some of their Amazon performance over the prior um year this 2025. It was fascinating Andy. We looked at their ordering curves and like when when people were this is a big big company right how much and they do a lot of volume with Amazon huge boost in volume in in in the late quarter 1 quarter two and then it like Amazon bought all this product from them and then it stopped and then they stopped buying for a while why because Amazon was stocking up they they I we think they were seeing all this tariff uncertainty they’re just going to buy all this product so they that’s exactly what happened there’s real implications for for manufacturers in particular for this kind of thing they brought the demand forward. So, they pre-bought a bunch of stuff knowing this and then maybe efficiency took over and they found a way to get rid of it or maybe there’s inventory that’s built up. Who knows? But again, that’s what I mean by people are looking for incentives and they do what makes sense to them. 

Well, I think so. So, the clear thing here though is this was and will continue to be one of the top stories of our time. Um, you know, 20 in 2025. We’ll see if it makes the top stories next year. Next story is all about is all about jobs, Andy. Jobs in B2B. We are in a no hire, no fire scenario here. This is, you know, AI layoffs. Wall Street Journal also did an article on this this week. Um and so we, you know, pulled some some thoughts from this, but we’ve seen it throughout the year. America, here’s some statistics they quoted. The Wall Street Journal, Americans with bachelor’s degrees or higher put the probability of losing their jobs in the next year at 15%. Up from 11% 3 years ago. Workers now think losing a job is more likely with those with less educa than those with less education do. That’s a striking difference from where we were. So in other words, then we’re talking about white, you know, white collar professional roles here. People are afraid of losing their jobs. They don’t want to leave, but then when they do, you know, it’s sort of a no hire, no fire. Then you’ve got this whole this whole college educated worker segment and they said they have an average 47% of finding a job in the next three years which is down from 60%. So you have the unemployment rate also higher amongst new college graduates. What do you make of all this Andy? 

Well I’d say there’s another piece of information here to watch out for which is I’m looking at what’s happening to recent college graduates. There’s a bit of noise in this system because I still say a lot of what’s driving this is the are the AI models and if the AI model knows what you know then you’re a lot less valuable than if it doesn’t know what you know and so people who are in senior level positions they have a lot of institutional knowledge they have wisdom that the model is still trying to absorb. So in a way they’re protected for right now but sadly people younger people um they don’t have anything to train the model on. They don’t know anything yet. They’re going to the job market to learn these things. So the on the job learning part is being disrupted by AI. And there’s evidence of this. Historically, the percentage of people who age 22 to 27 who have college degrees who are unemployed I’m sorry, were employed. They have a 5% higher rate of employment if you have a college degree in the age of 20 to 27 versus somebody who only has a high school degree. That has historically been the case for decades. Well, that number is close to 2%. Meaning, that there’s a little bit of people with high school degrees, their employment prospects are looking better >> and the people with college degrees, their employment prospects are looking worse to close that gap to 2%. 

We see this they’re, you know, we see this in B2B. They’re constantly trying to find electricians and plumbers. They’re looking for people to do this, hence the bump for high school graduates. 

But the college graduates, again, I think they’re getting upended by AI and various other things. And so they they can’t get a job. And yet the people with high school degrees trying to do more kind of bluecollar work, companies can’t find those people.

It’s amazing. Yeah. the trades. Um, you know, I was talking this week with some colleagues about actually it was same same group I mentioned earlier about, you know, where should our kids what careers should our kids go into? And there there’s actually, you know, less um apparently less sort of interest and value in a college degree for the reasons you’re describing. My 14-year-old, you know, if he wants to be a plumber, that’d be great, right? Because I mean, that’s career that’s not that’s not replacing the risk of that being replaced by AI is lower. No question. So, we’re going to keep an eye on this, guys. And I think we’ve seen this at our executive ranks, too, where people are, you know, they’re they’re always interested in new opportunities, but, you know, there there’s a real, you know, kind of in the back of my mind fear of of trying to find a new job in this in this situation, particularly with AI. But anyway, we’ll see how it evolves. This is going to be an ongoing story. Our next one is all about search and AI. Check this out, Andy. this emerged rapidly this year and a major overarching theme for all of our B2B community members here. Traditional search volume meaning SEO and sort of you know the traditional way of of generating search to websites could drop by 25% next year as buyers turn to AI powered tools. We talked about this a lot this year which is search engine optimization the traditional ranking of your products in a search engine staying relevant to the customer who’s doing a search that has changed dramatically. Now we have answer engine optimization which is you know really all about optimize yourself for LLMs because what happens in an LLM is the AI answers the question for you. There’s no click the answer is upfront. So this causes confusion. How the heck do I stay relevant? How do I optimize and measure success without clicks? And in this this new model that is different than what I’ve done for the last 15 or 20 years to stay relevant, drive traffic, drive awareness. So themes have emerged like semantic relevance, expertise, authoritiveness, trustworthiness, insight of content, focusing on topics, not just keywords, structured content, visibility. So, you know, how do you how do you rank in these LLMs? Well, now you need to be mentioned in the AI outputs, not just appear in the top search results. So, this was another top story, Andy. SEO is a dead being replaced by answer engine optimization. What do you what do you think? 

Well, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Really good discussion then. I think it has become maybe the biggest issue at the top of the funnel, at the beginning of the customer journey. I did see something interesting this morning though. It was a LinkedIn post where somebody was talking about chatgpt is now making it possible for people to buy in the window. And they actually took a couple of examples, put them into developer tools to kind of trace where what was happening. And what they discovered was that chat GPT was essentially doing a Google search and then it was coming back and it was essentially going for more credible sites. And I think the case the example they gave was like buying shoes. It was like it went to Runner’s World site and told you the question was what are the top five shoes for me to buy? And at the end of the day the source is basically Runner’s World and so prioritized third-party sites as opposed to the vendor sites themselves. But the conclusion was essentially it’s doing a Google search. So it’s not really using AI per se. It’s just a glorified version of it’s a natural language version essentially. 

It’s a front end on in front of Google. Here’s what’s interesting. We talked about this recently. Google making a comeback, right? So, Open AI was, you know, has been taking share in in the search market with, you know, just enormous amounts of traffic and usage. And you know, as we as we heard from Nostradamus himself on our predictions webcast, Justin Raldi, he said Google finally has a an actual competitor in OpenAI. But look at this statistic we’re showing here on the screen for those of you who can see it. You know, Google is taking back share now from OpenAI, right? What’s happening, Andy? 

Well, we talked about this one, too. This is a manifestation of the very issue. People want zero quick search. They want answers. I mean, you and I have joked about this. I I don’t want to do a Google search anymore and be given a bunch of organic search results to scroll down and click on other screens and never click on the sponsor results. I just want the answer. And so, if I just get the answer, then how does Google make money? And that’s the big question. Now, Google has the capability. They they definitely have the technology now 3.0, Gemini 3.0. They have it all in front of them. Their question is the problem for them is can they make the business model work? because their entire model was based on sponsored results. So, they’re going have to embed it in the results. But then you have zero cook results with embedded sponsors. How does that work exactly?

I don’t know. We’re going to find that’s going to be our big story next year is the introduction of paid paid ads in in LLMs and open AI. But we’re going to continue to hear stories hear news about this. Andy, this week just Amazon said, “Hey, we’re we’re thinking about investing $10 billion in in Open AI.” Look how Yahoo Finance put it. Amazon set to waste 10 billion dollar on Open AI. you know, a firm clearly swamped by competition, they say. Um so, you know, look, I think this kind of points to the points to the uncertainty in all this. and sort of you know maybe some sentiment moving to more back towards you know kind of Google being a winner but I think there’s still so much uncertainty in all this right well and I think Amazon actually is trying to bet on every horse in the race now because they also have an $8 billion investment in perplexity which is a direct competitor to open AAI and chatt that’s quad right so Amazon’s thinking well you know if we bet on everybody we’re going to win so that’s I think where they’re going but it is sort of I think the the subtext here is it is a statement that perhaps open AAI and CHPT has lost some altitude here and that Amazon doesn’t want to bet everything on them now but wants to hedge their bets >> that that’s a story that part of it big story 

Yeah Stephen Javor thanks for your comment he said Google and Meta have a business revenue model to evolve from but not so sure about open AI and Stephen’s at Schneider Electric by the way folks you know, great member of our community. He also said this, we’re finding that over over 80% of our citations are coming from sources outside of our domain. So, they’re getting a lot of traffic, you know, outside of their own domain, obviously coming in. So, this is really important to you know, to these to these companies that are um you know, that are contending with this change in how people are searching. and so there’s a you know there’s a real a real you know kind of not confusion but just sort of a I guess sort of an apprehension and where do you put your efforts and resources when you as you get into this. So well the story as we always joke is not over. It’s just begun. This is like the first or second inning of the game. 

Exactly. Exactly. This is and we got a comment here from Ricky Alderson by the way on our earlier point. Thank you Ricky for this. She says, “Fear the unknown. Tariffs changing from morning to noon and it will impact long lognitude longnitudely. I can’t even say that word.” But you know there’s I mean these these these stories are just so they resonate across and and you know we picked three here because we think these are some of the three most important but there’s so much more that happened this year and you know we encourage you guys to take a look back at our our podcast throughout the year here and check it out. But we’ve got to wrap up our our last podcast of the year. 

Summary of the episode on whether Google will win the AI race:

In this episode of Friday 15, Brian and Andy explore whether Google is emerging as a winner—or facing existential risk—in the rapidly intensifying AI race. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains the market leader, the discussion highlights mounting evidence that Google’s Gemini is gaining momentum fast. Gemini’s monthly active users reportedly jumped from 450 million to 650 million in a short period, while Google’s stock has surged dramatically, signaling investor confidence tied directly to its AI advances.

They argue that Google’s biggest advantages are structural: unmatched data, massive infrastructure, and an enormous installed user base already accustomed to searching within Google’s ecosystem. Gemini’s larger context window, improving reasoning, and deeper engagement metrics suggest it is closing the gap with ChatGPT and, in some areas, surpassing it. However, Google faces a major dilemma—AI-powered “zero-click” answers threaten its core advertising-driven search business, forcing it to cannibalize its own revenue model.

Ultimately, the episode concludes that while OpenAI benefits from focus and first-mover perception, Google appears to be “supercharged” by AI rather than disrupted by it. Most practitioners surveyed believe Google is positioned to win, even as monetization remains the defining uncertainty.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome everyone to Friday 15. My name is Brian Beck. I’m here with Andy Hoar from Master B2B, our weekly podcast, LinkedIn Live and Global Intergalactic session. Today we’re talking about AI. Andy, welcome to Friday.

We’re talking about AI. We’ve never talked about that before.

No, it’s either Amazon or AI. seems like this this last couple months, right? One or the other because there’s so many minds, right?

Well, this is an exciting session we’ve got to talk about today, folks. Um what’s happening in the world of Google and AI and how it’s relevant to all of you as practitioners and your world of trying to optimize and stay relevant to your customer. You know, Friday 15 is our weekly podcast and we’re excited to to be with you today. Now, of course, Andy, as usual, we do our breaking news, and today we’re talking about, let’s see, AI. Open AI declares code red. As Google threatens their AI lead, Gemini user base has been climbing Gemini’s user base, which is Google’s AI. Since the August release of an image generator, Nano Banana, and Google said monthly active users grew from 450 million to 650 million in October.

So, OpenAI is facing pressure from Anthropic, Gemini, across the board here, Andy. What’s your reaction? I mean, is is and this is kind of our overall theme here. This was in the Wall Street Journal this week. What what do you think? Yeah.

Well, you know, they need to co call a code red because I think people could argue that they’ve gotten a little bit distracted. They got tons of partnerships. They still are the biggest dog in the race. We’ll see some numbers around this that they have 800 million active users, right? So when Gemini goes from 450 like halfway there to 650 uh oh the trajectory doesn’t look so great for open AI and we were talking before the show here that there’s an interesting analogy here.

Yeah. Is open AI is chat GPT going to be the Netscape browser space because there’s so many interesting parallels. They had a ton of money. They were the first mover. They were the consumer product, right? And they were up against Internet Explorer, which was offered by Microsoft going back in the history books here. They had far greater resources, a larger install base, right? And what ended up happening was Microsoft rolled over on them and Netscape really sort of disappeared. Uh, could that happen to Open AI? Different Friday 15 perhaps. Maybe OpenAI raised 58 billion dollar, Andy. 58 billion. But guess how much they’re spending? $50 billion a year. Oh my god. On a market that people kind of estimate is in the hundreds of billions of dollars in terms of universe when if you think about it, I think the number I’ve seen is that basically these these AI companies are spending something in the order of like $3 trillion on a on infrastructure. So they’re spending $3 trillion on a market that right now right now has a universe and a ceiling of 300 billion. Okay, do the math there. Three trillion 300 billion. Either that either the $3 trillion number has to come down or and this is what everybody’s betting on the $300 billion number is going to go up because it’s going to spread throughout the organization and AI everything. So that that total available universe has got to increase or we’re looking at a bust. All right.

Well, we’ll see. I I think it’s going to evolve. But Andy, we had Nostradamus on our predictions uh webcast last week uh where we talked about our 2026 predictions. I guess of course it’s all about was all about AI, but Nostradamus, Mr. Justin Raldi from Safety, Speed Manufacturing. Did I say that right? I I never get his company name right. Anyway, he said Google finally has a real competitor. That’s what he said. Is Google winning or losing the AI space? And that’s our topic today. Is is goo how is Google going to fare in this world? I mean, you know, for years, Andy, we would spend all of our time, you know, as practitioners working on SEO, search engine optimization, making sure we were relevant for Google’s natural search algorithms and making sure we showed up high in the search results. Well, it’s all changed now. And, you know, is Google going to win? And where do you put your dollars and efforts? If you’re a practitioner, where do you put your efforts now? You how do you manage this? And you know this what happens to Google is a big is a big uh you know uh element here. It’s it’s important. So what’s going on with Google?

I mean we look at their stock price. What’s what’s going on here? It’s crazy. Market likes them. Yeah. So below the radar for a lot of people who aren’t stock watchers, uh Google’s price, it’s it’s uh Alphabet, right? Yeah. um has doubled in just the last 6 months, which is hard for a company to do when it’s worth $1.9 trillion to double to $3.8 trillion in six months. Wow. Why? But, you know, I thought, all right, well, maybe the entire market has been going up. All of the tech market has been rising. And so, this is just mirroring a trend. Oops. Microsoft stock has gone a sectionally sideways, right? Um it has gone nowhere. It’s gone up uh I think it says 2% something like that. Yeah. Yeah. 1.8 1.08%. Yep. Yeah. So it’s barely gone up and Microsoft’s been a high performer. Uh so it isn’t the industry at large. It is Google specifically. And if you look at the next slide, yeah, if you just isolate for the last two months or so, look at that increase. Wow. It was at the 40% level like two and a half months ago and then it’s up at 75%. Yep. In the last two to three months. So what’s happened in the last couple of months?

Well, you mentioned it at the very beginning. They released Nano Banano which is their generator and very importantly Gemini 3.0 which has done pretty well. I think you could see if you look at a couple slides, you know, this is a thing from just a couple months ago. Which of the following AI tools have you used in the past 30 days? It’s showing a pretty distinct trend here. Open AI again still in the lead, but look who’s in second place. Yeah. Right. Um, and these are usage numbers. Next, on the next slide, you’ll see that, you know, not only is that the case, but also, uh, people are spending more time on Gemini. So, this is just from like a month and a half ago. Gemini users spend more time chatting than those rival chat bots. Look at the red line. It’s above chat GPD and Claude. So, people are using it more. They’re spending more time on it. This is a bad trend for anybody other than Google, I think. Well, those of you listening, it shows that Gemini uh people are spending almost well, I guess about seven minutes chatting per visit versus chat GPT, which is down closer to six minutes. So, yeah, I mean just a utility thing. Is that is that because Andy though playing devil’s advocate, it’s less efficient or is it just engaging? It’s that or it takes longer. It’s less right. It could take longer also. S

o, and so we we declared on our predictions, we I said, “Hey, Google is not relevant. They have to eat their own business model. They’re, you know, their ad revenue is going away. They’re these these new competitors.” Nostradamus told us they finally have a real competitor. And Mr. Dan Hec from CDE Fasteners said, “You guys are crazy.” Well, me anyway. He said, “I’ve used he said, “I’ve used Chat GPT every day for three years. Just spent two hours on Gemini 3. I am not going back. The leap is insane. Reasoning, speed, images, video, everything is sharper and faster. It feels like the world just changed again. Right. So that’s actually that wasn’t Dan. That was Mark off. Right. Yeah. He’s he’s saying said something very similar like you guys like you said you’re crazy if you’re not using it. You know it’s not it has a something called a context window. that it was also in that note is that Gemini’s context window is to put it in perspective. It is like five times the size of Claude. Wow. And like basically five times the size of ChatGPT mean it can it can take more information in. It’s less expensive. It’s more efficient with tokens checking all these boxes. And I think there’s this test that we were talking about earlier. I think it’s a vending machine test where they tell an AI, hey, how would you run a vending machine business? and and it’s kind of like the touring test for these AI bots. And apparently Gemini has done much better the most recent release.

Now, let’s be fair here. These things come and go. You know, ChatGPT declared a code red. Maybe their next iteration comes out and blows Gemini away. But but there are some bigger issues at stake here. And if you see on the next slide, uh this is what’s happened in the last year. Again you for those who can’t see this it’s basically traffic AI traffic share and a year ago open AI chat GPT was like about 80% right and remaining 20 or maybe 85% the remaining 15% or so was split among seven or eight other big players like Gemini remember Deepseek the Chinese coming where did that go gro claude you know but they’re yeah But if you fast forward to today again, Chat GPT is still in the lead 75% but that number has come down from say 85% to 75% and the big winner here has been Gemini. Yeah. Yeah. So it does beg the question what do we what’s really happening here? And so you and I thought okay let’s take a look at this because this does impact B2B because B2B companies are using these technologies. Of course. Yeah, you know, how much is this going to change things? And so we put together kind of a pros and cons list and we should have a conversation about this one. All right. Will Google win the LL LLM game?

So basically the trajectory shows that it’s doing pretty well, right? And what are the arguments for and against? So what are the arguments for Brian? Well, for you know AI chatbots are in Google’s DNA, right? And and they have just plain and simple more data to train on. This is the same thing that you know you look at meta and there’s some interesting uh statistics about meta but also Amazon and others. There’s just more data and more storage space. I mean they just have more capability, more infrastructure. But I think the big thing Andy is their install base, right? I mean the the amount of people that already have the, you know, the the browser, the the capability, the familiarity with Google, etc. that I mean we talked about this pregame that is really their advantage, right? uh versus anything else uh versus versus an open AI which is you know it’s a new it’s a new tool it’s something different and it’s a different place for people to go you know people Google already has for example on the AEO agentic you engine optimization or answer engine optimization they already have people going to Google right it’s it’s already the traffic is already there they’re serving the answers within the results there’s no change necessary for the for the for the people and if those results are as good for now maybe better than going to a chat GPT you know that’s the the the base is there you know it’s just it’s the same it’s the analogous argument to Amazon moving from Amazon consumer to Amazon business the user is already there they’re already comfortable with using the the the path what do you think?

I think the interesting part with Google though is it’s a sword that cuts both ways because Google has a cannibalization issue they now have to grapple with zero search zero clicks. Sorry. Zero clicks. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. So their model before, as we all know, is you do a search and it shows you organic results which ostensibly are the safe ones that are unpolluted by advertising. And then you get the sponsored results, which is where they make their money with what they call the Chinese math. Onetenth of 1% of all the people who look at a page will pay for something, right? So that’s how you subsize it. Well, with Gemini, they just give you an answer, right? There’s no sponsored result. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I’ve looked at a sponsor result. I don’t remember the last time I looked at an organic result. I just when I go there gives me the answer. That’s called a zeroclick search. So, how is Google going to monetize that? That’s the big question for Google. Oh, man. It’s it’s advertising. It’s coming, man. I It is.

But, you know, will be embedded in that? I mean, there’s going to be a transition period. And it reminds me a lot, not to overextend the analogies here, what Netflix did. Remember Netflix had to cannibalize itself because it was doing the DVD by mail. Right. Right. And then it had to go to, you know, digital. Well, it had to lose that first business in order to gain the second business. The problem is Google’s a publicly traded company. What, 95% of their revenue comes from search. They’re going to have to upend their own model. So that’s the big question mark for Google. But yeah, Catch GBT has some advantages here despite the things we talked about earlier. you know, they had a head start, right? They are perceived to be the winner in the race, although that could go the Netscape route. Um, and let’s not forget, Google does have other businesses to attend to. It isn’t just the search thing, right? They’re in the cloud space, the Pixel, phone, Android, whereas Open AI, at least right now, does one thing. So, it could be that that Code Red Yeah. get them refocused on the one thing they do well and they could roll back over and in two months we could be talking about, you know, chap GPT 5.4 or whatever the hell it would be is even better. Who knows? Well, here’s the thing, Andy. ChatGPT, Open AI does not have to deal with that conundrum of when and how to introduce advertising.

Yes, I am sure I am sure that at Google they are spending lots alphabet they’re spending lots of time how do I monetize this? How do I introduce I mean this is has to be a raging like debate at Google right now like how and when do we do this because no I’m talking about Google introduce both of them really oh I see okay yeah but what I’m saying you know chat GPD’s got got it you know it’s it subscription model but Google you know how and when do I introduce advertising into this mo and it’s a huge risk because if they do that wrong everybody goes you know stays Does that remind you of? Doesn’t that sound like Netflix versus linear TV? Because yeah, I don’t know about you, but I pay for Netflix and all of a sudden I’m watching every show with advertising in it and then I have to pay to get rid of that. That’s the problem that Google’s going to have. Right. Does Google become Blockbuster? Right. And they don’t and they never change. You know, they never intro. Anyway, it’s this is fascinating. It’s changing. That is the big unknown.

You’re right. over the next couple of years is how do both of them grapple with advertising? Well, does Chat GBT or OpenAI even need to introduce advertising? You know, could get away from Yeah, probably they will because they’re not going to get enough subscriptions to pay I don’t know. And then unlike Google where everybody’s used to Google having advertising there, they don’t have to explain that. How’s OpenAI going to explain that one? Hey guys, we were the pure ones. We decided not to do advertising because we wanted you guys to get the right answer. But now we’re doing advertising. It’s all about the customer, man. It’s all about delivering value to the end customer. That’s that’s what that could be a harder fall. It could be a harder fall for chat GPT maybe maybe than it would be for Google where people go, of course, Google’s in the advertising business, but oh wait, chat G chat GPT is now. I didn’t Yeah, I’ll bet chat GPT is waiting to see what or open ads waiting to see what Google will do here, right? and then react to it. I don’t know. If I were them, I’d be waiting. I’d be You make the first move, Google. You do it first because we want to see what happens, right? Yeah. But the problem with that is that uh Google can wait them out because Google’s got tens of billions of dollars and an install base. Look, the the reality is, and this is a little known fact, Google was first to this. Do you remember back in 20 I think it was 2018 this made news because this guy was an engineer at Google who said we’ve achieved uh sentience meaning that the bot is now running on its own and he released this he released this blog or something like that and Google had to say no the guy’s a cook you know he doesn’t represent us he got fired etc. Google had the first version of this and they buried it. Why? Wow. Because it threatened their search business. Now, some would argue that it wasn’t ready yet, but Google was the first one to do this. They buried it and then when ChatGPT came along, all of a sudden within like two months, Google had its own bot. Where did that come from? I can tell you where it came from. They had it. They pulled out of the back room and said, “Oh, yeah. We’ve had this for years.” It may be, man, now it’s a monetization game.

So, this is our opinion, but we can’t get through this without actually asking Gemini and Chat GBT what they think, right? Of course. So, you did that. You asked them what they who’s going to win, what they say. So, Gemini said, “The choice between Gemini and Chat GBT depends on user needs.” And I think this was a backhanded compliment. Gemini may be favored by users in the Google ecosystem who need research and data analysis capabilities, while Chat GPT may be the top choice for creative projects and nuanced conversations. Yeah. Okay. Isn’t that like, well, we’re the real solution and they’re the solution of your art friends, right? That’s the idiot in the bar by themselves drinking alone. That’s chat GBT. Okay. And what did ChatGpt say?

Well, funny enough, you can tell by the answer where they really think. There’s no clear winner yet between Google Gemini and Chat GPT. But I can offer a brief comparison to help explain where Gemini might have an edge and where it might not. But you know, I got to tell you, when I wrote I put this in here yesterday, I was debating whether to put quotes around this and it occurred to me. I’m like, “Wait a minute, this isn’t a human. Am I quoting an AI bot?” Yes. So, so we also had to ask, of course, so that’s fascinating. So, we asked every, you know, ask the AI what they think of themselves. And then we had to ask, of course, our community and of course they said, we said, “Is AI killing or supercharging Google’s s business?”

And of course, overwhelmingly everyone said supercharging. Google’s winning 86% versus uh you know the pure plate LLMs like OpenAI Chat GPT. So I mean clearly the the the the industry at least is our community believes that Google is going to win this game Andy. So fascinating fascinating topic. We’re going to keep watching this obviously. I mean, it’s so so ingrained in everything we’re doing and it has implications for marketing, for process, for efficiency, for how you do business, for your own site search, for everything.

And this this AI stuff is so fascinating. So, we’re going to keep our eye on it. Even even even your organization, who you have in your organization, who you hire and everything, even my son, my goodness, my my son has to learn how to use this stuff.

Summary

The Friday 15 podcast discusses the debate between 1P (vendor central) and 3P (seller central) selling on Amazon for B2B companies. Amazon Business is projected to reach $83 billion in 2024, rivaling AWS revenue. The debate covers three key areas: brand and channel control, operational efficiency, and financial returns. While 1P offers traditional wholesale simplicity and buy box dominance, 3P provides better pricing control, higher margins, and customer data access, though requiring more resources and management.

FAQ

What is Amazon Business and how big is it?
Amazon Business is Amazon’s B2B marketplace serving business customers. It’s projected to generate $83 billion in revenue in 2024, making it larger than Grainger and nearly as large as AWS. It spans multiple categories including industrial products, MRO supplies, and office supplies.

What’s the difference between 1P and 3P selling on Amazon?
1P (vendor central) is wholesale selling where you sell directly to Amazon via purchase orders, and Amazon owns, prices, and resells the product. 3P (seller central) is marketplace selling where you sell through Amazon without them taking ownership—Amazon facilitates the transaction while you control pricing and inventory.

Why are B2B companies focusing on Amazon now?
Millennials and Gen Z now comprise 70-75% of the workforce, with 60% of millennials preferring Amazon as their shopping channel and two-thirds making half or more of their online purchases there. This Amazon-native generation is bringing their purchasing habits into their professional buying decisions.

What are the biggest challenges B2B companies face selling on Amazon?
The top challenges are all related to channel conflict and control: price erosion, unauthorized resellers, and conflicts with traditional distribution partners. These issues affect brand reputation and pricing strategy.

Which approach gives better brand and channel control?
1P generally wins the buy box more consistently, providing better control over who customers see as the seller (Amazon). However, 3P allows manufacturers to control pricing, access more customer data, and have greater autonomy over their brand presence through the self-service model.

What are the operational differences between 1P and 3P?
1P works like traditional wholesale distribution—you ship pallets or trucks to Amazon on purchase orders, and they handle everything including returns. 3P requires using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), where you send inventory to Amazon’s fulfillment centers but manage consignment-style orders, requiring different finance and operations processes.

Which model is more profitable?
3P typically generates higher revenue per unit since you receive the retail price rather than wholesale price. However, 3P has additional costs including Amazon commissions, FBA fees, storage costs, and staffing requirements. For high-value, lightweight products, 3P usually wins. For low-price, bulky items (like toilet paper), the economics can favor 1P or even out between the two approaches.

Can companies use both 1P and 3P?
While not explicitly discussed in detail, companies can potentially use hybrid approaches. The debate focused on which is “better,” suggesting companies often need to choose a primary strategy based on their product characteristics, pricing, and operational capabilities.

What recent change has Amazon made regarding AI search engines?
Amazon recently reversed its policy and announced openness to allowing bots from answer engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT to scan its site. This addresses concerns about Amazon becoming a “walled garden” and suggests they’ll cooperate with rather than compete against these emerging search platforms.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian: Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. We were in Atlanta this week at B2B online and we held a debate, 1P versus 3P selling on Amazon. Which is better for B2B? And this was a fascinating discussion. I’ll set us up a little bit in terms of the context of the debate and of course Andy that at my company ENCIBA we work with this issue all the times we work with B2B companies on Amazon. So Amazon business the first point of the matter is for B2B companies Amazon business is perhaps the most relevant element or reflection of how Amazon is addressing B2B industries and this year according to Bank of America they’ll do $83 billion. So this is an enormous enormous category and you made the point Andy at the conference that that’s significantly larger than Granger. Now, who would have thought that Amazon’s B2B business was generating as much revenue, nearly as much revenue as AWS? Yep. It’s incredible. So, it it’s really and it’s across many different categories. This isn’t just office supplies. Industrial and MRO products, for example, are one of the largest categories. And what’s driving a lot of this is customers, right? 60% of millennials say their Amazon is their most preferred shopping channel. Two-thirds make half or more of their online purchases from Amazon. And by the way, folks, millennials in Gen Z are now 70-75% of the workforce. Millennials are now entering their 40s, guys. So, we’re talking about a cohort here, which is an Amazon native cohort that are using this for their personal life and now increasingly using Amazon for their buying in their business. 

Andy: Well, and one other quick thing too about this, which just came out in the last week or two, one of the criticisms of Amazon has been that Amazon has not gotten on board with allowing the robots or the bots to scan its site and participate in the answer engines like Perplexity and ChatGPT, etc. Well, they’ve reversed course on that and they said they’re open to discussions about that. So, was there going to be a wall garden or not? It looks like there’s they’re going to at least allow some people to get in, which now addresses that issue. Like, is Amazon going to go to war with the answer engines or is it going to work with him? If it goes to war, that could be dangerous and risky. Now, however, it looks like they’re going to cooperate with them. So, they’ve even addressed that issue. 

Brian: Well, I mean, I think yeah, there’s a lot of reasons for that, but that wholesort of search landscape and such is really evolving so quickly. It’s going to be interesting to watch their play because they’re investing themselves in all the search as we talked about recently on another Friday 15 with the head of Amazon Business services. So, I suspect there’s some of that too, right? it’s going to be they need to make it reciprocal and these sites are going to block Amazon if Amazon blocks the sites. So, hey, we have to all get along, right? Exactly. So, if you’re a business, a B2B business, you have to make a decision number one – Amazon now is too big to ignore. So a lot of companies particularly manufacturers are saying to themselves well we need to sell on Amazon we need to take it a step to control this channel and then get close to it in the sense that there’s so much opportunity here that we we can’t ignore it and we want to sell on it because it is a legitimate distribution channel. So there’s different ways to do that. There’s what’s called vendor central which is wholesale selling. It’s also called 1P where you sell directly to Amazon on a purchase order. You ship to their fulfillment centers. Amazon takes ownership of it like a traditional distributor would. They price the product. They sell the product. And the other side of this is what’s called seller central. The other way to sell on Amazon. That’s also called 3P or third-party selling. And this is essentially a marketplace model where you’re selling through Amazon, not to Amazon. Amazon never buys the product. There’s no purchase order. It’s more of an e-commerce type transaction with Amazon as a facilitator. Amazon still processes the order. you can use something called fulfilled by Amazon to ship the product in a prime eligible way to the customer. So they’ll handle the shipping for you. But again there’s no sort of purchase of the product. So this was the crux of the debate Andy where we asked the question which of these which of these are better and this is some research we did at Inciba earlier this year our pulse report which said hey what are the biggest challenges we asked folks who are selling on Amazon one of the biggest challenges you face and what’s interesting is the top ones were all about channel conflict and control price erosion unauthorized resellers causing conflict with traditional distribution so that’s the crux that was the crux of our first round when we asked the question all about that. Now, we had two teams, Andy. You were team one, 1P is number one and I was team 3P or no P, meaning 3P or nothing. 

So it was a really great debate and our first question was which approach is better for gaining channel control and brand control on Amazon. Now this again being one of the key things controlling the brand quality and presentation but also controlling things like price and what goes on to Amazon. This was an interesting debate. Um, this particular one, what were some of the points that you guys made? 

Andy: Yeah. Well, we made the point that when you’re selling 3P, which I was on the 1P team, so for intellectual honesty, I stuck with the 1P argument. And we’re critical of the fact that in the 3P environment, you don’t know who the hell is selling your product. Yeah. And you just mentioned that the top three issues were all around control, brand control, channel control. And so I think we did a pretty good job making this argument that it’s a bit of the wild wild west and your reputation matters a lot. Say what you will about 1P. If you sell directly to Amazon, at least people know where they’re buying this from. Amazon. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point. And in fact, I think, , the thing that was really , about the one piece side is that if you you will in general win what they call the buy box on Amazon on a listing, if you’re selling to Amazon, they’re generally going to win the sale versus other sort of unauthorized sellers of that product or other other resellers of that product. So, from a control of the buy box perspective, absolutely. 

Brian: We argued on the 3P side that it gives you the ability to control price. To set your price on Amazon when you’re selling. It also gives you more data back in terms of what’s what’s happening on the channel and it sort of gives you more control because with regard to kind of your presence on the channel because Amazon is a 3P model is more of a self-service model versus the one piece side. They’re taking control. So, we’ll reveal who won that round when we get to the end. 

Brian: Andy, our round two was all about which selling method is preferable from an operational perspective, meaning which , from a from a fulfillment standpoint and from a from a , finance and and and processing standpoint. Now, 1P operates like a traditional resale channel does wherein , you’ve got Amazon buying the product on a PO. They take the product inhouse. It it feels it follows a lot of traditional process. I mean that was really what you guys argued right Andy? 

Andy: Yeah. I mean essentially that’s what it waswith Amazon you ship the pallets you ship the trucks. You don’t have to handle the returns. I mean it was operationally it’s a lot more consistent with especially the way a brand manufacturer would operate. Yep. much easier for them to work with with Amazon operationally and logistically. And then the 3P team argued of course that you use what’s called fulfillment by Amazon in which Amazon handles all that last mile for you. they’ll take the product into their fulfillment center. They will do the last mile shipping. The product will be prime eligible and they take the burden off of the manufacturer. But there is still more to do. I think that came out on your side related to you’re selling now on 3P. you’re selling contingency orders or consignment should I say orders where the finance team has to do some things differently and so does the operations team in the sense that they’re not shipping against a PO so there’s there’s some differences in the fulfillment process as well and then our we’ll we’ll get back to who won that round at the end here and then of course our third round was about returns economic returns which one was superior from a financial perspective and it’s really the cost structure is different I made the point at the beginning of this round that when you’re selling wholesale, you get a wholesale revenue number. That’s 1P. When you’re selling retail 3P, you’re getting the whole retail number. So, you’re picking up that margin difference between wholesale selling and retail selling, but you have to pay some fees on the 3P side like a commission to Amazon, like FBA fees, like storage costs, and and and resourcing costs as well. What was your argument on this side, Andy, on one page? 

Andy: Yeah, this is a tough one because it’s kind of math. I mean, when you’re a wholesaler, you’re getting the wholesale price. When you’re the retailer, you get the retail price. The retail price is always going to be higher than the wholesale price. However, as Shelene pointed out, and I think quite accurately, is that maybe on a per unit basis, 3P is pretty obviously the winner here. But if you factor in the total cost of running that program, because you pointed out, so euphemistically you said what was the term you just used? You called it resourcing costs. Well, if I’m doing 3P, I got to have somebody’s managing that. I got to make sure that, somebody’s making sure that FBA is working. I make sure somebody’s not selling below MAP or etc. So, you got to factor that cost in, etc. So, there’s kind of a compliance cost. Um, but if you throw all that in, his feeling done both was that it kind of evens out. 

Brian: Yeah. I think ultimately what we see is the P&L on on these, unless your product is a really low price product, meaning your AOV is sub $10 in price point, the math usually works out in the favor of 3P, although, at the end of the day, it really depends on how you’re resourcing and other things. But if you have a high AOV, relatively light to ship product, it almost always pencils to be much more profitable and higher revenue with 3P. But I I mean it varies like Shelene was saying. I mean he was at GP Georgia Pacific and they sell toilet paper. I mean talk about a low AOV item and a bulky product to ship, right? So anyhow, I think it varies quite a bit.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian: Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. We’re going to do a report from the field and Andy, you and I this week were in Seattle, Washington at the Amazon Business Reshape Conference where we had really a great opportunity to meet with all sorts of folks both at Amazon and from the community at Amazon and Amazon Business. So we’ll talk more about that. We have a special guest. So, hang on for just a minute here and we’ll get them into the program. But first, you know, many folks don’t necessarily know what Amazon Business is. So, we thought we’d take a minute to kind of explain that Amazon business is the same website as Amazon. It’s not a different website. You log in with business credentials and you’re able to access features, all kinds of features specifically for business buyers. There are teams of people now Amazon has in the field working on different aspects of recruiting buy side buyers who are making purchases through Amazon business as well as sellers. That’s new for Amazon relatively speaking. I mean historically Amazon has been much more about just the ecom experience. They’re they allow pricing tools there’s business Prime a whole set of features. So, it’s really a Amazon’s effort to pursue the whole B2B side of purchasing. And this year, Andy, Bank of America says they will do 83 billion. For context, Granger does about 17 billion. Right. It’s this is not just office supplies. It’s across a lot of different categories. In fact, Andy Jassy says, “We believe that we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible to date.” So really, you know, amazing. potential I mean they didn’t talk about Amazon in their filings for Amazon business excuse me in their filings for years now all the way up to the CEO they’re talking about it it’s clearly a major initiative and we were at the Reshape conference Andy what was that about well first of all I’m betraying my age I was there when they changed the name from Amazon supply to Amazon business Wilson who used to run the group called me and said hey want to chat and then he described what they were doing and I’m like well that seems like a different kind of approach I think a better approach and it’s hard to believe that was 10 years ago. Amazing. So it was almost poetic that you and I were there together at the Reshape conference which is really a conference targeted at procurement professionals right the people who buy things on mass for for companies they’re largely compensated based on how much money they can save and I think Amazon’s angle with this among many is that they can aggregate tail spend help control spending which is what procurement professionals do. So, in many ways, it’s ideally suited for that. But the whole show was really about that. There were but it wasn’t all just, you know, serious stuff. 

 

So, we havea very special guest, Natalia Montouri. And we’ll bring you onto the stage here.  Natalia, can you hear us? Okay, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Perfect. Excellent. Yes.  Natalia is a director at Amazon Business and one of the one of the superstars at Amazon. We’re really excited to have you. We had the chance to sit down and talk one-on-one with you, but why don’t you tell our audience what your role is, what do you do at Amazon business. 

 

Natalia: Thanks so much for having me and thanks so much for coming to Reshape. I agree it was a great few days together with customers and analysts and all sorts of different people in the procurement world. I’ve been at Amazon for almost 13 years. And the last year I’ve been , in Amazon business. So, I was at Reshape last year and this is sort of my one-year anniversary with Amazon Business. I work on a couple of different things for Amazon Business. One of them is the thirdparty sellers. So, sellers that sell to B2B customers and helping sellers to sell to B2B customers. I also work on services which we should talk more about because that was one of the highlights of Reshape and that includes both restock as well as IT services. I also lead a group focused on socially responsible purchasing. So customers who want to buy from small diverse local sustainable suppliers, we have tools and ways to help them do that. and finally, we’re starting to tinker a bit in the grocery space because we keep hearing from customers that they want to have access to that type of selection. Think bananas in the breakroom, milk, those types of things. You know, a party you want to put together. and that’s a big space that we’re looking at as well. 

 

Brian: I will say from a business perspective, one of the highlights was that restock program and services, you know, I’m looking at vending machines, you know, you guys are doing I mean this is like this is awesome stuff you guys are doing. Tell us more about that. 

 

Natalia: So we launched the program actually part of the program last year at Reshape and it was really fantastic because we did a panel this year about this program and I’ll share some of the new things we launched as well but the customers on the panel came to reshape last year and they saw our display and for folks who weren’t at Reshape I would say across the floor and Brian and Andy can keep me honest the booth that had the biggest crowd was the services booth and there in that booth we had the vending machine we also have a locker solution that we launched as well and then we have some IT services that are new that we are launching as well and essentially what we’re hearing from customers is that they it’s not just about the product sales but what we layer on top of it and you ask like why did we do this well everything we do at Amazon starts with the customer we’re not interested whipping things up that aren’t valuable to our customers and so in the business space, as you noted, we are still fairly young, you know, 10 years, and we’re still building things that customers really, really value.

And so, we heard from customers that they were looking for these additional services, and we built that, started off last year with this vendor manage, inventory, and vending. And then we layered on lockers this past year and then this IT offering as well. 

 

Brian: So tell us about Rufus. We know you launched Rufus for B2C recently and it really was kind of interesting. $10 billion in sales. This one caught my eye. 60% more likely to convert. I think it kind of answers itself, but tell us a bit about why you decided to migrate Rufus over B2B. 

 

Natalia: We launched the Amazon business assistant. That’s our AI solution at the moment. and it’s we all use ChatGPT right we all like this conversational approach to doing business and that is what this is in the B2B procurement context so opportunities to save spend anomalies bulk purchasing opportunities selection elevation opportunities so that’s where the com that’s the point is that you can do all of these things now through the conversational format. In the last session of Reshape, we had Ari Shapiro there. He’s a award-winning journalist. And one of the phrases that he had was, and I thought it was so interesting, “AI is never going to be as bad as it is today.” Like, I like that. It was like I would say, you know, for folks who are testing out all all of the tools, I’m not just saying Amazon business assistant, actually, it’s pretty good. But all of our tools are only going to get better. 

 

And we’re going to get better, too, right? We’re going to figure out how to use them in smarter ways. Like they can do things that we’re not tapping into, right? So, we should all be looking towards the future, right? And how we integrate, but this is our we we talked a lot about AI, not throughout the entire Reshape conference. That was clearly a topic on the minds of our customers in open conversations as well as closed door conversations. And so we’re excited to hear from customers what they think about Amazon business assistant and we are I would say just getting started. 

 

Brian: That’s what I love about Amazon. You guys stay true to that customer focus even at the scale you’re at. It’s incredible. The other thing that I saw was interesting. Shel talked about the trucks right on you guys now have trucks. I mean you it’s amazing tell you like I was at Accelerate – that was a big theme at Accelerate the Accelerate conference was you guys are a fulfillment company we did a episode on this a couple months ago so tell us about that now you’re rolling trucks around too.

 

Natalia: The customer need is they want direct deliver. They want palletized delivery. They want to have that familiarity that brand is actually really important. Think about even from a security standpoint like that truck comes in It’s not a non-descript truck. It is an Amazon business truck. That’s for sure. In many cases, same drivers, you know, same routes. Yeah. So, there is a bit of that consistency which is particularly valuable in a business context. So, we’re super we’re really excited about these trucks and they’ve, you know, they started rolling out to some metro areas that we’re going to continue to in like everything, right? We start here, we continue to increase our coverage. we’re, you know, I have yet to see one in the wild. but I’m excited to be able to see that for but this is this was a big undertaking for our team and we have we get questions too from businesses often about targeting business buyers right so you guys are offering now business advertising which is something rolled out recently.

 

It just makes sense. Advertising is all about a message targeted to an audience and we have a specific audience the business buyer right so no this This this very simple and so we’ve been working on our ad products so that our sellers and vendors can target those business buyers and that not only means targeting the that audience but also being able to have the right messages for that audience business discounts bulk buying even if you’re selling the same product that being able to show it in a a large pack that’s more relevant for that business audience and I will say so as I mentioned at the beginning I work with are thirdparty sellers and they have adopted this product quite well and what they’re saying is they’re seeing great rorowaz from it because business buyers again they have a different profile they buy more units per purchase they return less they convert higher they’re professional buyers right right and so we have to get that the right messages in front of them and that’s that’s something that we’ve been working on and we’re really excited with the early results of this ads product awesome 

SUMMARY OF THE EPISODE

Anthony Locke, Global Director of Distribution E-Commerce at Schneider Electric, discusses why the $38 billion manufacturer chose not to sell direct-to-consumer despite e-commerce growth. After experimenting with direct web shops, Schneider pivoted to a channel enablement strategy, launching marketplace platforms and tools that help their distribution partners succeed online. The conversation covers innovative micro-site technology, the shift from SEO to answer engine optimization (AEO), and how Schneider avoids competing with distributors by directing all traffic to channel partners.

FAQ

What does Schneider Electric do?
Schneider Electric is a global leader in energy management and automation, operating in over 100 countries with more than 150,000 employees. They combine hardware, software, and digital services to help homes, buildings, data centers, and industries use energy safely, efficiently, and sustainably. The company generates approximately $38 billion in annual revenue.

Why don’t manufacturers like Schneider Electric sell direct in B2B?
The primary concern is channel conflict—when manufacturers sell directly, they risk disintermediating their channel partners like distributors, dealers, and retailers. While manufacturers have economic incentives (higher margins, lower costs), direct selling can damage critical partnerships. Over 50% of Schneider’s revenue flows through distribution partners, making these relationships essential.

Did Schneider Electric ever try selling direct?
Yes, a few years ago Schneider experimented with direct web shops in several countries to fast-track new product launches, collect customer data, and create flagship selling experiences. However, they quickly realized direct selling wasn’t their expertise and pivoted away from this approach.

What is Schneider’s current e-commerce strategy?
Schneider now focuses entirely on channel enablement rather than direct sales. They help distribution partners launch and execute their own web shops, or in some countries, launch Schneider Electric-branded marketplaces that are fully backed and supported by distribution partners. This approach helps distributors digitize without requiring extensive technical expertise or investment.

What tools does Schneider provide to help distributors sell online?
Schneider offers a comprehensive stack including content enablement, advanced landing pages, product selection tools, and configuration capabilities. Most impressively, they’ve developed micro-sites that can be launched in about 30 seconds, branded with the partner’s logo and containing complex selection tools that would normally take months to integrate into a distributor’s existing website.

Why are the micro-sites such a breakthrough?
Traditional integration of selection tools and configuration capabilities into distributor websites can take anywhere from 2-12 months or never complete due to technology constraints. The micro-site solution removes this friction entirely, allowing distributors of varying technical maturity levels to immediately access sophisticated e-commerce tools without complex integration projects.

How does Schneider handle SEO competition with their distributors?
Schneider doesn’t compete with distributors for the “buy box.” While Schneider’s strong brand presence means they often rank highly in organic search results, they use a “unified web strategy” where all traffic with transactional intent is directed to channel partners. They use tools like Commerce Connect to seamlessly route customers to distributors, ensuring they don’t create friction in the buying process.

What is AEO and why does it matter?
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) refers to optimizing for AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, as opposed to traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Anthony sees this as a revolution happening faster than anticipated—people are now using multiple LLMs to get answers instead of just Google. Schneider is running pilots to measure their presence as an authoritative source in AEO and working with channel partners to understand and drive impact.

How is Schneider measuring success in the new AI search landscape?
Schneider has launched pilots in different geographies with channel partners to establish baselines for understanding AEO impact. They’re measuring whether they’re considered an authoritative source in answer engines, identifying which sources are winning, and determining how to align their presence with those sources—all while maintaining their channel-first approach.

What’s the difference between informational and transactional intent on Schneider’s website?
When customers visit Schneider’s site with informational intent—learning about solutions, capabilities, applications, and how products can help them—Schneider provides that content directly. However, when customers show transactional intent (ready to purchase), Schneider immediately routes them to distribution partners to complete the purchase, removing as much friction as possible from that handoff.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian: It is the Friday 15 with Master B2B. Another fun week and exciting announcements and a special surprise guest. We’re going to be talking about should manufacturers sell directly via e-commerce. This is a hot topic even now. I mean, we we’ve been talking about this for 10, 15 years, right? Manufacturers. Pick your category. If you’re not selling those directly as a brand in e-commerce, the retailers look at you and go, “What the heck’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you selling direct, you’re not supporting the brand properly.” But in B2B, it’s a different story. Most manufacturers are not, selling directly. In the meantime, B2B e-commerce is growing really quickly. B2B online sales reached 28.1 trillion dollars last year. 10% of all B2B sales are transacted via digital channels. And this B2B commerce is twice as big as B2C. At the same time though 35 full 35% this is from McKinsey 35% of B2B firms do not have an e-commerce enabled website and a lot of that 35% is made up of manufacturers. And when you ask a manufacturer why aren’t they selling on Amazon excuse me e-commerce directly it’s about channel conflict. Channel conflict is when when a manufacturer brand can has the ability to disintermediate their channel partners such as distributors, retailers, dealers and sales reps by selling directly through e-commerce through through internet channels, right? There’s powerful economic incentives to do it. They have more margin. They have, relatively speaking, lower cost of goods than a distributor does. So there’s an incentive there. But then again, when you’re a big giant superpower company or even not not even any really player who’s making a product, you can disintermediate those channels by by doing this. So, how do you balance this? It’s really about striking a balance. Do you engage in direct e-commerce? Do you enable the channel? And that is the topic we’re going to talk to today with our super superstar guest, Mr. Anthony Locke, who is with Schneider Electric, which is this tiny little company no one’s ever heard of. Global director of distribution e-commerce and he’s clearly also a Texan. So, let’s introduce Anthony. 

Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. good afternoon, good morning everyone. Anthony Locke, Schneider Electric. Good to be meeting with you today. I’m originally from Australia. But I’m currently based in London, UK. And so I’ve been working with Schneider Electric for, we were talking earlier, it’s my 30th year. Wow. Um, so I kind of I feel my age sometimes. but yeah, I’ve been through quite a quite a journey with the business and I guess also in B2B distribution in terms of being along for the ride in terms of the digitization of selling and the implications of that as a manufacturer and to our partners. So it’s been an interesting journey. 

Brian: Yeah, no question. I was just with you. We were just hanging out in Copenhagen in Denmark which I was fortunate thank you Anthony for the invitation to speak at your conference related to global enablement digital and what it was it was so awesome to see some of the things you guys are doing and want to get into that a little bit so but we want to start the conversation well actually let’s so so tell actually tell the group what Schneider does.

Anthony: Schneider Electric we’re a global leader in energy management and automation operating in more than 100 countries globally with more than 150,000 employees. So at the core of what we do, we combine hardware, software, digital services to help homes, buildings, data centers, and industries use energy safely, efficiently, and sustainability. So we’re about empowering everyone to make the most of their energy and resources. And that’s really the core of our mission. 

Andy: And you’re a tiny little company at I think about 38 billion, right? 

Anthony: So yeah, around 38 billion in 2024. 

Brian: So clearly a leader in your space and from that conference I was at with you there were lots of big distributors, midsize distributors, the Rexells of the world were there, all these different, really prominent companies that have their own e-commerce, right? They’re looking to enable their business. You as a leader, you have a huge presence in the market. Every electrician in the world knows who you are. industrial automation companies etc. What should a manufacturer sell direct? I mean this this that’s the question here. What’s the role of the manufacturer as you think about this dynamic? e-commerce presents an opportunity. What do you think?

Anthony: It’s a good question and a very interesting one. I mean the way that we see it is that it’s really about a partnership of two specific types of expertise. And I think that’s a little bit of what we saw in Copenhagen. we Schneider Electric is about partnering and so for us you talked about the 38 billion more than 50% of that goes through our distribution partners and we’re really about focusing and enabling that to happen and for them to be successful with us. So, so if you consider I mean we work with a wide range of different partner types who are at all different steps of that digital journey in terms of the maturity some of them extremely mature in terms of digital selling and full omni channel some of them more focused on proximity with a consultative engineering solution play and some in the middle but what we try and do is basically bring our understanding of the segments and types of customers that they are serving. Understanding the pain points, understanding what they are trying to achieve in terms of what part of the buying process are they in. Are they in the investigation, prototyping, production, MRO, etc. and bring those two pieces of expertise together really to win and for us to establish ourselves with those partners as a category champion. 

Our strategy at a point in time we’ve looked at taking a direct play to market but it’s something that we quickly established was really not something we wanted to focus on and so today we’re we’re about enablement with our partners. 

Brian: So you’re not selling directly. 

Anthony: No. So we so again a few years ago we we took an experiment in a few countries really to to open some web shops and to use that I guess number one as a way of perhaps doing some fasttrack entrance to market with new products collect a bit of data understand appetite number two use it as a bit of a flagship selling experience as well putting these ecom shops out really with the best content best customer journey, etc. But we really quickly established it wasn’t our skill or expertise to be doing that. And so, quite frankly, we looked at it and we thought, how do we manage, kind of that get those values but do it with our partners. And so, we pivoted away from a web shop approach. And what we’ve now gone to is to a marketplace enablement approach. So, we’re either helping our partners launch and execute on their web shops or in some of our countries, we actually launch our own Schneider Electric marketplaces, but they’re fully backed and supported by our distribution partners. And it’s a way to help them fast track, digitize and capture e-commerce revenue in situations where perhaps they don’t have the expertise or the investment or whatever the challenge could be to enable them to actually set up their own their own e-commerce shop and start selling. 

Brian: Got it. So yeah, so some of those so so you’re not selling directly. You were you backed away from it. now you’re now you’re fully engaged and and one of the things I was really impressed with Anthony at the conference at your innovation summit was some of the tools you guys are bringing to the market to enable these distributors. Can you describe some of those? It was amazing to me to see you creating like micro sites in real time from like 500 people. I’m like this is amazing. 

Anthony: You’re just so anyway you want to just talk about some of those well absolutely I mean look the way again to to win in that dynamic that we talked about we need to make sure that we’re kind of bringing a full stack of capabilities to support our partners to execute deliver the right customer experience and really tell the customers that they’re serving like I I know who you are I know what your challenge is I know your pain point and I can help you and especially when we start getting into the kind of more technical domains of the products that we sell towards manufacturing and water utilities these these businesses these end users are looking for partners who understand their needs and they think are competent to support them. 

So the question becomes how do we support our partners in demonstrating that competence as part of that journey and that’s exactly where the tools come in. So we do start at basic things around kind of content enablement basic advanced landing pages tools and capabilities to allow end users to put together more complex baskets of goods to solve specific problems and transact those online. And so then in terms of what you referenced and we were demoing in Copenhagen, one of the pain points that we’ve seen is that so we build selectors and capabilities and different tools which allow an end customer to go put into configuration build a basket and then check that out. But there is a technology requirement sitting behind the execution of those tools. And as simple as it may sound, what we can often see is getting that onto one of our partners’ site is a nightmare. Um, and I’ve seen it take two months, I’ve seen it take 12 months, I’ve seen it start and never end. So, the strategy that we’re working on right now is that, we know that because we have such a mix of different maturities and also technology challenges. It’s not always even a maturity thing. it can just be, the technology, capabilities you’re using don’t allow you to be as agile and integrate things in the way that you would like. we looked at that and we said how the heck do we solve that and really serve all and so one of the capabilities to your point was we’ve developed a a micro site setup where we can basically execute and launch a custom micro site branded with the partner that has all of those selection tools in it which are typically super difficult to deploy and integrate and they get them like that and that was incredible. I mean it was it was it was good fun. It was literally like 30 seconds. You were like, “Somebody raised their hand.” Yeah. Let’s make a let’s make a micro site for you. We were calling out to the audience. We had the logos ready and we just popped it in. And it was it was great. And I mean, the response we got in terms of the, our partners in the room recognizing, kind of the friction that we were removing in that process. It’s not even about the friction with their customers. It’s about the friction between them and us in terms of enabling them, you I mean, it was super well received. So, yeah, so that was it was a pretty good pretty good demo and I think a lot of follow-ups come from that. 

Brian: I had one other question that I want to ask you before we run out of time here. as it relates to because you and I had a quick conversation on this in Copenhagen, it’s about the changing relevancy in search, right? So, and where people are searching and how they’re getting answers, SEO, answer engine optimization versus SEO. And I know as a manufacturer, you told me you view helping companies to show up in search and stay relevant, your resellers, your what’s changing there? I mean, how are you measuring this new impact with, with all this volume shifting to LLMs now, including on Google itself? How are you maintaining relevance? Is  it something you’re still figuring out? 

Anthony: It’s a new strategy in itself. I mean there’s no getting away from it. And I mean look I reflecting on my on my 30 years in terms of working in distribution and working with these partner types and looking at the new technologies that come. It was like the revolution of e-commerce and oh my god e-commerce is going to be the death of a salesman. You you talk about that Brian but of course it wasn’t. it’s about how it enables and so forth and and then also the impact and the time frame that the introduction came especially into B2B industries is a bit slower sometimes than maybe we anticipate this whole thing about SEO GEO I mean to me this is a revolution and I think it was only months ago that we were all speculating around what could be the impact we’re in B2B Chicago and I think the topic was being touched on lightly is to yes this is something to reflect on and let’s let’s consider this in our strategies and then suddenly before we know it it’s there and people are doing it and we’re doing it. I mean I’m sure you’re doing it right. We’re all doing this. Like Google’s not obsolete and nor will it ever will be in my opinion. But for sure as heck, I’m using about four different LLMs now, to do some of that data crunching and tell me something versus, kind of having to go and raw interpret data. And that is happening in B2B and then and then and then how do you’re staying relevant? Our response is what we’ve done is immediately started to launch some pilots and investigation in how to both measure and impact and and there are ways to measure you can start to understand whether you are an authorative source in AEO you can you can start to get a data point on that you can start to understand what are the authority sources and who’s winning and then how do you start to you bring your presence towards those sources in whatever way possible. So for us what we’re doing is we’re working with some of our channel partners. We’re actually running some different pilots in different geographies to look at this impact and really establish the baseline of understanding of how to drive it. but make no bones about it. Do not kid yourself. this is here. This is landed. It has happened. Right. Yeah. 

Andy: I want to ask the controversial question now. So you mentioned about the channel conflict that was mostly deconflicting on the back end. I want to ask about the front end. You brought up AEO, SEO, GEO. They’re kind of all merging together. How do you handle this scenario? Somebody comes to Somebody goes to Google, types in I’m looking for an electric a Schneider electrical capacitor. Just making this up. Okay. Can you compete on SEO and SEM against Rexel and Sonar? 

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, look, I wouldn’t put it the our strategy is we’re not competing with them at all. What we’re doing is we’re complimenting. And so the way that we take it is we take it as a unified web strategy. The reality is that us as a brand we do have a very strong digital brand presence. it is very likely that we will be kind of at the top of the organic rankings and and in some cases maybe even around brand terms on the paid rankings. So we’re going to be there but what we don’t want to do is cause friction in terms of that end users buying process. So the simple answer is is that whether we win or whether they win all parts go to them. And how do we do that? We do it with things like commerce connected capability. So even when we do get customers coming into our site if they have a transactional intent and intent is important because if they don’t have a transactional intent it might be quite appropriate that they are in our domain and the understanding more about our solutions capabilities applications the way we our product can help them. Um, but when they get transactional, it’s about getting them into the channel and pulling as much friction out of that as possible. So tools like Commerce Connect, the fact that we launch things like our our marketplaces, etc., for us, it’s just a core mission about partnering and enabling our distribution partners to sell. It’s very black and white. Well, we’ll have to bring you back to talk about this because I think there’s some specific use cases that I find fascinating here. If somebody literally is looking for a Schneider electrical capacitor, Yeah. You just defer to Rexell and so they’re going to buy those keywords, right? Those are your distribution partners. Plus, you’re there. Yeah. And you might win on the SEO end of things and increasingly the GEO AEO end of things. And then how do you deconlict that? I mean, once the once they’re on your site, that’s kind of easy, right? But before they come to your site, yeah, in the battle for the buy box, so to speak, and I’m not sure what the AO equivalent is, how do you fight that battle? That might be another interesting conversation. Yeah, but but what? But but I’ll give you a little snippet of an answer. I mean, we’re not fighting for the buy box. That’s the simple answer. we’re we’re enabling our partners to go after the buy box, but we’re not putting ourselves in it. so everything we do is about channeling the traffic and opportunity and towards them. So it’s it’s not as controversial unfortunately as it could be. It’s it’s it’s a simple strategy for us. Before we do, I’ll try and make it a bit more spicy. I’ll reflect on it. Andy, this is great stuff, man. And we can talk for an hour and and frankly, I think we’ll need to have you back because this is a really been a fascinating conversation.

SUMMARY OF THE PODCAST WITH GIREESH SAHUKAR

Gireesh Sahukar, Master B2B executive adviser and former VP at commercetools and Dawn Foods, shares insider tips for buying software. He emphasizes looking beyond features to evaluate vendor stability, financial health of specific business units, cloud infrastructure dependencies, and realistic roadmap delivery capabilities. Key advice includes finding references the vendor doesn’t provide, understanding SLAs and business continuity plans, verifying comparable customer success stories, and comparing past roadmap promises against actual delivery to assess future performance.

FAQ

Who is Gireesh Sahukar and why is his perspective valuable?
Gireesh is a Master B2B executive adviser who has worked on multiple sides of the software industry—as a VP of implementation at commercetools (an e-commerce platform vendor), VP of digital at Dawn Foods (practitioner side), and has experience with systems integrators. He’s also a Mach Alliance ambassador emeritus with technical expertise, giving him unique insight into both vendor and buyer perspectives.

What’s the biggest mistake companies make when evaluating software vendors?
Companies get too focused on features and functions, treating the product as if it’s the entire company. They fail to look at critical factors like vendor stability, management turnover, cloud infrastructure dependencies, financial health of specific business units, and actual delivery track records versus promises.

Why is understanding cloud infrastructure and SLAs important?
Since most software today is cloud-delivered, you need to understand what happens when third-party providers like AWS or Azure experience outages. Questions to ask include: What are the SLAs? What’s the recovery time? Does their downtime mean your site goes down? You need business continuity plans for these scenarios before they happen, not after.

What should companies know about a vendor’s data processing agreements (DPAs)?
Every SaaS business must disclose through their DPA who their third-party providers are and for what purposes they use them. This isn’t secret information—it’s contractual. Understanding the vendor’s ecosystem of partners and dependencies is critical since your online experience now depends on multiple interconnected services.

How do you properly evaluate a vendor’s financial performance?
Don’t just look at total company revenue. If you’re buying from one business unit within a large corporation, understand that specific unit’s performance—their trailing 12-month results and projected next 12-month revenues. Public companies often disclose this in annual statements. If the numbers don’t add up (2+2 doesn’t equal 4), that’s a red flag.

Why should you seek out references the vendor doesn’t provide?
Vendors will always give you their best, happiest customers as references. You need to find customers in the “average,” “unhappy,” or “churned” categories to understand potential problems. Use LinkedIn and your network to reach out to companies using the software who weren’t on the vendor’s reference list. Ask churned customers why they left.

What questions should you ask about comparable customers?
Ask about customers similar to your company size and industry. If you’re an enterprise B2B company, success stories from small mom-and-pop shops aren’t relevant. Understanding how the vendor performs with comparable customers gives you realistic expectations for your own implementation and support experience.

How can you tell if a vendor’s roadmap is realistic?
Look at what they’ve actually delivered in the past year versus what they’re promising for the next quarter. If past delivery was “an inch deep” but future promises are “a mile long,” ask what’s changed—did they triple their engineering capacity? Engineering teams typically grow incrementally, not exponentially. Past delivery volume is the best predictor of future delivery.

What’s the screenshot technique for evaluating roadmaps?
Take screenshots of the roadmap the vendor shares during your evaluation. A year later, pull out those screenshots and compare them to the current roadmap. This shows you whether they delivered on past promises or if they’re presenting essentially the same “wish list” year after year. Gireesh recommends buyers take accountability by doing this comparison.

How does the financial services disclaimer apply to software buying?
Ironically, while financial services say “past performance is not a guarantee of future returns,” in software buying, past performance IS a guarantee of future returns. What a vendor has delivered historically is the best indicator of what they’ll deliver going forward. Their track record matters more than their promises.

What “day two” activities do practitioners often neglect?
Beyond initial feature evaluation, companies need to plan for operational realities: What happens during outages? What’s the recovery path? Do you have business continuity plans? These aren’t day-one concerns but week-two and month-two activities that are better addressed early rather than during an actual crisis.

What should you look for regarding vendor management turnover?
Be wary of excuses like “management churn is normal in tech.” Ask specific questions: Why is the CEO no longer there? Why was the entire product team let go? Significant management changes, especially in leadership or product roles, can signal deeper problems with company direction, strategy, or stability.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian: Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. We’re going to be talking about software buying tips and tricks from an insider – Gireesh “The Silencer” Sahukar. Gireesh has is a living example of someone who’s been on both sides of the fence. He’s a now a Master B2B executive adviser. Welcome to the team there, Gireesh. You were a VP of implementation and customer services at commercetools, a leading e-commerce platform. Prior to that, VP of digital at Dawn Foods. You’re a  ambassador, I guess, emeritus, right? The Mach Alliance. You worked at Keurig and Dr. Pepper. Gireesh, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey. 

Gireesh: Andy, Brian great great great to be here again. Great to be back with the Master B2B cohort. Looking forward to having a lot of great conversations with the master B2B folks. As you mentioned I’m one of the newly minted Nexus advisors  just starting out on a new journey here. 

Andy: So we wanted to bring you on Gireesh because you’ve had a lot of different experiences. You’ve been on the vendor side, you’ve been on the SI side, you’ve been in the e-commerce space, the search space, been a practitioner in multiple companies, and you have a technical background. So, we thought this is like a really good opportunity, especially since you’re now one of our executive advisers, to pick your brain about what are the mistakes that you see companies make and what are the opportunities that they miss when they’re buying software. And so, we want to go through a couple of slides with you and sort of tell you what we think people do wrong and then get your thoughts on what they should be doing, right? 

Brian: Yeah, there’s so much confusion around this now, Gireesh, because you’ve had all this composable stuff come out. AI is is further confusing and as a business leader in particular and you’ve crossed you cross business and IT so magnificently that I we think that you can really contribute. So let’s go through some of those to Andy’s point let’s go through some of those points. Well here’s the first one Andy you want to set us up and then let’s ask you. 

Andy: Yeah. And I found this to be the case myself that companies when they’re evaluating software vendors, they get stuck on the product and they think the product is the entire company and it really isn’t. So I always say don’t settle for a long list of features and functions. the excuse that management churn is normal in tech. That’s one we hear a lot. Yeah. Why is the CEO no longer here? Well, it’s just management churn. Or how come the entire product team was let go? Oh, it’s management churn. and then of course recently the statement that we are committed to AI. , what exactly does that mean? Right? It’s like when a plane crashes and they say, “Well, safety is the number one priority.” Well, apparently it wasn’t right before the plane went down. So anyway, that’s sort of what we see on our end, but want to talk to a little bit about what you think companies should be doing instead or in addition to those things. 

Gireesh: Andy, you said don’t look at features and functions. I think that’s a day one requirement right when when you’re launching a new platform with a new platform  you need to know what they have but beyond that once what they have what’s next with a lot of almost every software nowadays being a cloud delivered software you need to understand the SLAs. You need to understand what’s their availability is like and when they go down what is their recovery time recovery path what’s that outage mean to you and your own front end  is is your site down? If a third party provider is down, those kind of things that you need to understand and you need to have a contingency plan. You need to have a business continuity plan for those things. And , those are day two activities. Those are week two, month two kind of activities that most practitioners don’t really pay attention to when buying software. You need to have a plan and it’s better to have that plan early than have to endure a AWS outage like last week or an Azure outage. I think that was yesterday. So these are if an AWS goes out what is your what is your plan to be up and running? Those are key questions. 

Andy: It actually also stresses the point that you need to have an assessment of the ecosystem these people operate in because as you pointed out when it was software that you installed behind a firewall that was one thing but now that there’s a dependency on cloud compute providers other companies that are building your online experience your mobile experience your AEO GEO experience you need to know not just who the software company is but also who the partners they have and right what partners do they still need right and these things are not secret right every every SASS business has to tell you through their DPA data processing agreement who are the providers they use and for what purpose so you will know contractually who you’re dealing with and who else they’re they’re using. So another big one that you’ve talked about when we’ve chatted about this is this idea of understanding the financial performance of the company right  it seems like whenever companies report their financial performance to potential co companies customers they say things like oh here’s our total company revenue and here’s how many years we’ve been in business and here are what I call the macro metrics which is  here are here’s how we deal with all of our customers. And you’ve contended that that can hide a lot of things, right? It can hide business business unit performance. You only care about comparable customers, right? If you’re an enterprise company, do you really care that these guys are serving  a mom and pop shop in their basement really well? Yeah. So, what do people need to ask here? 

Gireesh: So, think about a large software company, right? We talked about some of the other providers that released their earnings this week. But when you unpack that  if you’re buying services from only one small business unit inside of their gigantic corporation, you need to understand how that small business unit you’re actually doing business with. What is their track record of performance? what is their trailing 12-month  performance and their next 12-month projected revenues, right? They are more than happy to tell you in any kind of RFI RFP process under NDA. They’re willing to share these things. Public companies generally give those in their annual statements. So they’re public. You can look them up. so do that diligence, do that research, right? If 2 plus two should add up to four, sometimes it doesn’t and that’s when you raise the flag. And then you also want to think about not just the customers that they won also some of the customers that they’ve lost and see if you can talk to them and understand why did they say no to a provider you may be saying yes to  – what were their criteria.  When I was at Dawn, we actually did this and asked a bunch of other B2B companies why they chose the software they chose versus the ones that we were looking at. And many of them gave us really candid and good honest advice about what we should be looking at and thinking about when we were going to pick the software we’re picking and how we should be operating on that. 

Brian:  I was going to say one of the things that I’ve always found valuable is finding references in companies that the software provider didn’t give us right when I was a practitioner. So  who else is using them that they’re not they don’t want to maybe don’t want us to talk to, right? So, there’s a little bit of that.

Gireesh: When you just ask your prospective vendor for references, they’re going to give you their best customers, right? So you have to go find the customers that are  using but they’re not extremely happy with or customers that are unhappy and have left and have churned. so you have to dig through and find out who’s in that sort of average or unhappy or exited buckets and try to figure out if you can and if your if your network is big enough to go find them and you can reach out to a lot of people on LinkedIn nowadays. it. , LinkedIn has made it easy and you can go get that kind of advice. 

 

Andy: So since we talked about references, which actually I think that’s great. Let’s talk about the last area here for today, which is the road map. This is one of my favorites because whenever I talk to companies and they brief me, you wouldn’t believe some of the crap I hear about road maps. And so  I just sort of throw these in there and I know you and I talked about this like don’t settle for what they tell you is on the road map or what they’re excited about. I don’t care what you’re excited about. What are you actually going to deliver? And then  don’t settle for what customers are asking for. That’s the other thing I often hear. It’s like oh well this is our roadmap. Customers are asking for this. None of this matters right unless they can actually demonstrate that they’ve delivered. So what’s your advice for them on that? 

Gireesh: When you go to these briefings  you get  the road map, the future forward of future looking road map and the past deliveries, the the past year delivery is an inch deep, but the road map for a quarter from now is a mile long, right? So, you you have to ask yourself, okay, you delivered an inch, how are you going to deliver a mile one quarter later? What have you done in that intervening period to be able to make that enormous leap? Sometimes that is true. They’ve added a whole lot of engineering teams and staff and capacity. That is possible. But more often than not that is not true, right? The engineering capacity almost incrementally goes up. It doesn’t go triple quadruple in one quarter. That is rare unless you’re dealing with a startup that went from seed to series A or series B. But in general what they delivered a quarter ago, two quarters ago is going to be the amount of features and capabilities they will deliver in the quarter coming up or in the quarter after. Right. So anything beyond an inch deep is probably not realistic. So you have to evaluate that and be realistic. 

Andy: Yeah. past this prologue, right? I mean, what they’ve delivered in the past. And I often say too, Your road map is not a wish list. It’s a development plan. And so, I’ve seen people just load up on all the things they want to do with no real plan to deliver. And to your point with no track record of actually having delivered any of that stuff. And so, I know I won’t name names, but I’ve talked to companies in the last several years where the road map is almost exactly the same as it was the year before. And honestly pretty much the year before that. Wow. One more thing and I’m like wait a minute this is the same road map. So either you guys do a terrible job of road mapping or you can’t deliver anything. 

Gireesh: Yeah. When I was selecting and implementing software what I would do is I would take screenshots of the road map they shared and I would go back to those as I’m talking a year later and said here’s what you promised a year ago. Here’s the road map that you’re presenting today. Right. and , we’re if we’re buyers, we we have to take some accountability in that, right? And say  this is what I promised. This is what I planned and this is what you’re now promising. So, your promises are matching up or not matching up. You have two pictures side by side and you can do that yourself. Right? This is one time where that  you hear the statement on all of the financial services past performance is not guarantee of future returns. In this case  past performance is a guarantee of future returns. 

 

TRANSCRIPT:
Brian: Today we want to talk about our report from the field Master B2B roundtables and AI of course was a big topic here amongst other things. we you and I this fall have been all over the place  in different markets around the country talking to and meeting with our chapters across multiple markets. We were in Cleveland, I guess that was about a month and a half ago now. Andy, there was a great group there. Any notable  folks or or , kind of comments on the the venue. Looks like a beautiful venue. 

Andy: Yeah, it is right next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s why we had the Cleveland Rocks thing there. But no, what we consistently find is that there’s some folks who either don’t have the budget for travel, they don’t have the time because they’ve got kids in school, whatever to go to big conferences on a regular basis. So when we go to them, they show up and so we have net new people that come to these things that don’t go to other things. But yeah, it was a really  really all three all three of the events I did were fantastic conversations. There’s one thing that kind of jumped out at to me when they’re talking about AI. First of all, the theme of this was budgeting, but was really prioritization, right? And the thing that’s upending a lot of this prioritization besides the macroeconomy is the emergence of AI. And the one thing that I heard and I I’m curious what you heard about AI is that people said we need to do stuff that can increase efficiencies. That’s the no-brainer application of AI. It isn’t this broad, , overarching systemic stuff where it’s going to change how everybody works. How do you define that as a proof of concept? But if you can, for example, make the salespeople more efficient, if you can make the customer service people more efficient by giving them more information, that’s what I kept hearing. 

 

Brian: I did a round table recently in Minneapolis and those you see the screen here see the fantastic group we had there and it was a lot of the practicality of AI is what came out to me. It was where people are actually using and there was descriptions of data  descriptions of the digital experience using AI to help with things like product recommendations and some some standard some things that we as e-commerce merchants have worked on for for years  but AI being one of those things that it’s almost it’s a democratization meaning that the folks that  at the top may not necessarily know where to invest but people at the with their hands on the wheel are experimenting with it. They’re playing with it. They’re finding places that can make their jobs easier  and in some ways  almost  accelerate the stuff they they were already doing. So it’s really more of a tool than a threat.  You did one recently in Chicago also, right Andy?  Across all of these different markets I think we heard some consistent themes and we started by asking it was all about it was all about budget securing your budget and we started by  asking the questions around making the pitch right so the first topic and the way we run these roundtables is we do three three rounds of discussion and people get up and they talk at their tables and they move to a different table. Our first discussion was about making the pitch to  to to get the investment necessary and the priorities and when we looked at and talked about the priorities certainly AI fell into that but it was other things like e-commerce platform investments, PIM investments investments in data investments in analytics these were some of the top things we heard. Andy what did you take away were some of the themes you heard from the audience that you were working with?

Andy: Well one is the perennial issue around data. Everybody’s got a data problem and nobody’s got a good solution for it. The other thing I heard was, and this was a bit inconsistent at times, but I’d say generally the trajectory was in this one direction of there was enough money, let’s say plenty of money in some cases to spend on AI. Funny enough, not a ton of money to spend on people. So, , people have characterized this as a no hire, no fire environment. So, for now, people are not necessarily being let go, but there’s not a lot of hiring taking place. I think we’re going to start seeing that in the economy as well. So, if you’re going to spend a dollar  getting an AI project up and running, apparently, there’s no money to spend on the person for that, but there’s a ton of money to spend on the tool for that. And I heard this repeatedly. It’s interesting. 

Brian: I heard the same things during the roundtables I was doing and was fascinating when you look at  even like for example that remember we heard Shopify CEO talk about this earlier in the year where hey you need to if you’re going to if you’re going to look to do something or make a hire you have to convince us meaning the management that AI can’t do the job which is interesting so it’s an AI first environment  and in fact what was interesting when we when we interviewed  Dr. Lisa a few weeks ago  about this topic. She also said it was the organizations that are successful successfully embracing AI are actually encouraging people to use it within the organization and upskilling the people that are in the company versus hiring new people to do it. So it’s more about hey work with AI and figure out how it can help you in your tasks and how it can become an asset for you in in in doing your work. So when we think about, , , the making the pitch piece, , Andy, which is our first round, , part of making the pitch is in learning, , AI and how it can potentially accelerate some of the things you’re looking to otherwise invest in. That’s something was very interesting. And I I I did hear some common themes though in the roundts I did, Andy, around making the pitch, which was there has to be some kind of, , real return to it. , , there’s still the CFO is still looking for nbers and a return.  an ROI calculation that shows a benefit back to the business.  there’s still questions of incrementality of things like e-commerce versus other channels. So there’s still a lot of sort of traditional thinking and process in this making the pitch process. Anything else you want to share on making the pitch? Well, you reminded me of something the comment somebody made in Chicago which everybody sort of laughed about  which is he recently this person recently purchased a software tool and the CIO said hey  where’s what’s the AI dimension to the software tool and he said well there is no AI dimension because it just it’s not relevant. He goes are you sure? and he’s like well why does it matter? Like well because I can get that approved much more easily. Are you sure there’s not some AI dimension to this? I mean, this is where it’s getting kind of fascinating kind of weird. Well, that and that’s kind of this topic of the second round of our discussions at these roundts, which was the impact of AI. And you just said it, , it’s really interesting. Every everyone’s putting AI at the end of everything to get funding, right? , which which is, , I mean, there’s something to it. But one of the things that came out at the round tables I I facilitated Andy was was that ultimately  the the the practitioners are looking for the solution providers to be addressing some of these AI tools. There was there was a t whole theme we talked a lot about e-commerce platforms because turns out that ecom platforms are the nber one thing that our our our community when we survey them are saying they’re investing in over the next year. they they want to improve, enhance or replace their existing ecom platform. And the and what came out in the roundts that I talked about was, , you should be asking your e-commerce platform provider, what are they doing with AI to make their the whole process, everything that they deliver on print and digital experience, process of publishing product, merchandising and personalizing products, marketing, all the things that you have to do with your ecom platform. How are they using AI to make those things more efficient, easier, and better? and hold them accountable to telling you because ultimately, , they’re a software company. They’re a technology company. Did you hear the same thing? Well, I’m I’m gonna laugh because we forget that these are companies, too, and they’re behind the curve in terms of integrating AI in saying platforms are all software companies are. Yeah. , I talk to these companies all the time and what I often hear is like, oh, we’re using Copilot, like Microsoft Copilot. like yeah that’s what we’re using for our I’m like okay well that’s pretty powerful or we partner with open AI and we haven’t really final it’s a lot of talk but I’ve already decided and I’ve announced it on this show that next year’s paradigm B2B combine is going to be different it’s going to be different in that I’m going to force these companies to tell me how are you now an AI centric not AI adjacent or AI in name only an AI centric platform because everybody else is transforming around AI. What are you doing? And you can’t just bolt some stuff in. Now, it is a fair argent that maybe it’s not relevant everywhere, but you just named a few things. Certainly, give me a module where it doesn’t really apply. Personalization, yes.  PIM, yes.  shopping cart, yes. I mean, I can keep going down the list. So, they need to systemically rethink their platforms. And there I’m still waiting for the AI native platform to come along. Somebody in his bath is his is basement who creates a basically a an e-commerce platform that’s AI at its core. What we have is a bunch of platforms that were non AI that are adding AI in which it’s like a hybrid car versus a pure car. I I don’t know. It’s it’s going to be interesting to see but for sure the platforms are behind the curve. Well, I’ll give you one that is native. It’s it’s Amazon. I mean, I I remember going back to my, , to the  Accelerate conference I went to back in September and my goodness, it was all about AI. We have a whole podcast about it where, , at the end of the day, Amazon, and I know it’s not an independent platform, but they are once again setting the bar for what it means to have an AI platform. And I’m not talking about the front end with things like the Rufus tools and search tools and relevancy, but I’m also more even more importantly talking about the seller tools like that the administrative tools that sellers use on that platform to create content to process returns to forecast everything related to the supply chain with fulfillment by Amazon. I mean, just go across the the entire workflow of working with Amazon. they’re adding AI everywhere and it’s setting a precedent for the rest of the market I think. So the last one of our rounds Andy was building your business case  for building your ROI case. So was interesting here is again as I mentioned a lot of these fundamentals that we’ve always talked about seem to remain in place but also and you’ve mentioned this from some of the the market or some of the round tables you went to if you got AI attached to it in some cases people are just sort of getting dollars and they don’t know what to spend them on right or or sort of do you even need an ROI case if you’re talking about an AI centered investment what are your thoughts or yes that’s true or you’ve got companies CFO saying, “I I won’t make any investments unless I see a clear ROI.” Well, in some cases, AI is such a change to how people operate that we’re not going to know what the actual ROI is until we execute on the proof of concept because it’s going to change how people work. It’s going to change the cost of things. And so, that part is hard to do. And so I I’m sort of of the camp that it’s better to do it than to do the business case around AI because it’s easy enough to do, but I heard many people say when they go to their management teams, these guys are saying things like, “We want to see an ROI case even around AOI. They’ll give you the money, but they need to see the ROI.” It’s like, well, I don’t have an ROI yet because I haven’t done it. So there’s a bit of that trap that people are falling into. In fact, I had some people describe it as almost like a Shark Tank like circumstance within the company where somebody’s going to get some funding and they’re all going to line up. Whoever’s got the best AI story with a madeup business case, which by the way, a lot of people they’re just making this stuff up. Let’s break it down, though. I mean, I’m reflecting back on the conversation we had a few weeks ago again with Dr. Lisa where she was talking about companies that are being successful with AI are thinking about the customer first and thinking about real use cases and breaking it down to practical use cases. So I mean think about I I heard cases of companies using AI for for very practical things whether that’s a chatbot or automating certain processes within the organization or even getting  content started I mean or data normalization I mean there’s there there are practical steps that companies can take with AI but the key is breaking it down to something that’s actually useful customer centric or and that customer can be internal too. It can be a traditional work process you’re trying to improve. But that was her advice was – this sort of nebulous, hey, AI as an investment is not the right approach. You’ve got to break it down to things that are really  practical and business use case-centric. 

Author and executive Dr. Lisa Palmer shares learnings from her new book, “Show AI – Don’t Tell It: Build Buy-In with Visual Storytelling.”

In her research she found that there are 3 key reasons why executives get “stuck” when considering their AI strategy, and she offers a framework for how to get “un-stuck” and unlock AI’s potential within your company.

Dr Lisa’s Advisory Firm

Buy Dr. Lisa’s book

 

The stock market has punished the shares of research firms Gartner and Forrester because of the possible impact of AI on their revenues. But it’s not so clear that AI can replace everything research analysts do. Former analyst Andy Hoar walks through what analysts actually do in their roles, and which parts of their jobs will be – and won’t be – impacted by AI.

 

SUMMARY:

Jon Groza, intellectual property attorney at KJK, discusses why B2B manufacturers fail to protect their brands online, particularly on Amazon. Key issues include unauthorized resellers causing price erosion, channel conflict, counterfeit products, and consumer safety risks.

Despite 70% of manufacturers having unauthorized sellers (with 70% not knowing who they are), companies hesitate due to fear of enforcement complexity, Amazon backlash, or budget concerns.

Groza emphasizes that brands have enforceable IP rights and can successfully reclaim control through monitoring and cease-and-desist programs without necessarily resorting to litigation.

FAQ:

Who is Jon Groza and what does he do?
Jon Groza is a partner at KJK, a full-service business law firm, where he runs the intellectual property and e-commerce practice. His firm specializes in brand enforcement, helping manufacturers—particularly those with premium products—shut down unauthorized resellers and protect their brands by enforcing their intellectual property rights across various e-commerce platforms.

What is the scope of the unauthorized seller problem?
Research from ENCIBA found that almost 70% of B2B manufacturers have their products sold on Amazon, and over 70% don’t know who these sellers are. This represents a significant loss of brand control, with some major brands having hundreds of unauthorized resellers selling their products on platforms like Amazon.

What are the real costs of not protecting your brand online?
The costs include: retail price erosion (unauthorized sellers compete primarily on price), channel conflict (authorized distributors see lower prices online during negotiations), brand reputation damage, incorrect or fraudulent product information, counterfeit products reaching customers, consumer safety risks, and opportunity costs from lost revenue and profit when manufacturers aren’t controlling their own sales.

What’s an example of how bad this problem can get?
Milwaukee Tools was cited as an example where one of their top-selling products generates over $1 million annually on Amazon with almost 50 different resellers—many with names like “Joe’s Discount Store” or “Discount Express Hardware.” These unauthorized sellers create pricing chaos and brand control issues, with products potentially being diverted inventory, items “falling off the back of a truck,” or goods purchased on sale and resold.

Why should consumers care about unauthorized sellers?
Consumer safety is a major concern. Products like power tools, motorcycle helmets, batteries, or food items that aren’t stored, shipped, or handled properly can be dangerous. There have been documented cases, including a Wall Street Journal article, about fraudulent motorcycle helmets sold through Amazon that resulted in deaths. Additionally, warranties may not be valid if products aren’t purchased through authorized channels.

What intellectual property rights do manufacturers have even without patents?
Even if a product isn’t patented or patentable, manufacturers still have enforceable rights in their copyrights and trademarks. These IP rights provide the legal foundation for shutting down unauthorized sellers who are using the brand’s logos, product images, or trademarks without permission.

Why don’t companies protect their brands online?
According to a LinkedIn poll, the top reason is that companies don’t feel they have a way to enforce or police unauthorized sellers (number one answer), followed by lack of executive alignment. Other hesitations include: not knowing where to begin, not understanding their IP rights, fear of antagonizing Amazon, concerns about distribution channel relationships, budget constraints, and worry about antitrust counterclaims or litigation.

Will taking action against unauthorized sellers antagonize Amazon?
No. Groza emphasizes that there’s a way to work in conjunction with Amazon rather than getting “sideways” with them. Amazon is more receptive when consumer safety issues are involved. His firm maintains a good working relationship with Amazon while helping clients address unauthorized seller problems, and many clients successfully enforce their rights without damaging their Amazon relationship.

How has the government’s position on Amazon’s liability changed?
The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently classified Amazon as a distributor, meaning they could be held responsible or liable for products sold through their marketplace channel—not just products Amazon buys wholesale. This gives more weight to consumer safety arguments and provides additional leverage for brand protection efforts.

Is this problem limited to Amazon?
No. While Amazon is the most visible platform, unauthorized selling occurs across all third-party marketplaces including Alibaba, Walmart.com, and eBay. Each platform has different approaches for addressing the issue, but the fundamental problem of unauthorized resellers exists across the e-commerce ecosystem.

Is brand enforcement just “whack-a-mole” where shutting down one seller means another pops up?
While some new sellers may emerge, doing something is better than doing nothing. Companies can make significant progress in recapturing the buy box and shutting down unauthorized sellers. Often, what appears to be many different sellers may actually be the same entity operating multiple storefronts. Additionally, resellers communicate in chat rooms and forums—when they see enforcement actions being taken seriously, it sets an example that deters others.

Does brand enforcement require expensive litigation?
No. Companies can commit to monitoring and cease-and-desist programs that don’t always result in litigation. When litigation does become necessary (typically for particularly disruptive resellers), these cases are usually resolved fairly early through settlement rather than lengthy court battles. The investment doesn’t need to approach advertising budget levels to be effective.

Why is brand protection as important as advertising?
Groza argues that in the e-commerce age, your brand may be even more important than patentable intellectual property. Using Coca-Cola as an example, while the formula has changed many times over decades, it’s the brand itself that holds the value. If you’re investing in advertising and promotion but not protecting where and how your products are sold, you’re undermining that investment.

What does successful brand enforcement look like?
Success means: protecting profit margins in your online store, recapturing the buy box on marketplaces, ensuring authorized distributors can compete fairly, maintaining brand reputation, guaranteeing product quality and safety, validating warranties for customers, and creating a deterrent effect where unauthorized sellers think twice before listing your products.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome everyone to Friday 15 with Master B2B. My name is Brian Beck. I’m here with Andy Hoar, my co-host on this intergalactic podcast. Welcome Andy to Friday 15.

Hey, good to be here.

We got an interesting topic today. A little departure from what we usually talk about, but nonetheless very important topic, and I know you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. So I should be more more Brian Beck today and less Andy just to alert our affiliates, right? Affiliates. Yes. Do we have affiliates? Excellent. Well, everyone, before we get going, of course, as usual, we need to do our the breaking news. Everybody, look at this. Andy, you found this. AI can now pass the hardest chartered or certified financial analyst test. The CFA test, Andy, is one of the hardest things any financial professional has to take, right? And this is something that, you know, people spend a thousand hours, several years, studying for. However, new research shows that AI can now pass the test, even the toughest one, in just minutes. This is fascinating, Andy. What What does this signal to you?

If you’ve got a white collar, watch out because And you do, but we say this a lot. It doesn’t mean it’s wise. It does mean it’s really smart. Not necessarily wise. And I think of the analogy of like a child prodigy, right? Um, and and by the way, this the research shows that most child prodigies end up not doing very well later in life. They’re very good at the beginning. You know, they impress everybody. We have all this hope that they’re going to, you know, cure cancer. And a lot of times they end up not doing that because they’re not really capable of evolving. They excel at one thing. They get locked into that one thing and they can’t you know reinvent themselves later like we all have to in our lives, right? This could be different though because you know Chad GPT these AI engines are constantly evolving and so by definition they evolve that way. But I don’t know if you saw the article in the Wall Street Journal I think it was this morning about the amount of money being spent on AI. It is unbelievable. People are likening it now to this the boom of the dot era. Not not the dot companies, but the infrastructure around the I had a couple of interesting notes here. Facebook is going to spend $600 billion on AI within the next three years. Um there’s a company called Coreweave which was a backwater company that’s building on these data centers. It’s now worth more than Target. Wow.

And uh the last one is interesting. This is where people are concerned about this bubble is that OpenAI just uh committed to a contract to spend $60 billion a year with Google. Oh my gosh. Oracle, sorry, Oracle. And Oracle’s like, well, this is amazing. A guaranteed $60 billion. The only problem is right now OpenAI is making $1 billion a year in revenue. So, they got to get that number way up or they got to get the other number way down or there’s going to be this divergence that no be able to be explained. That’s just one company. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, one thing you said there, Andy, I’m not sure, you know, most companies are now worth more than Target, including the corner store, probably. So, I don’t Sorry, Target. So, anyhow, well, uh, folks, we got to get to our topic today, which is why do BDB firms fail to protect their brands online? Andy, this is close and near to near dear to my heart, I guess. I guess, you know, sort of um, you know, in terms of brands actually protecting themselves, you know, it’s e-commerce and and and just the the whole web is just a can be rife with all kinds of bad actors and you know folks who sell your products you don’t know why are brands not not protecting this you know and I think the best way to kind of describe this Andy is looking at Amazon right so we did a poll my company in SIBO which manages Amazon programs for branded B2B manufacturers we did a poll a couple years ago that asked u the several hundred manufacturers you a bunch of questions. Among them was are resellers selling your products on Amazon who are you know do are your products sold on Amazon? Almost 70% said yes. Then we asked the question do you know who these people are? Almost 70% over 70% said no we don’t know who they are selling our products. This is the perhaps the most acute example of losing control of your your brand online. Amazon. There’s so much motivation for companies to sell products there for small, you know, folks, opportunistic resellers, etc. to sell products on Amazon because, you know, it’s easy if you have a big brand, companies can go on and sell your product.

A great example of this is my friends over at Milwaukee, right? Everybody knows Milwaukee. They have great tools. Well, Milwaukee, I’m sorry to say, your your situation is a complete mess on Amazon. You have hundreds and hundreds of companies selling your products. You probably, I’m sure, don’t know who most of them are. Sorry, I’m talking directly to you, Milwaukee, but this is representative of what happens with a big brand on on Amazon and on the internet when you don’t control it. You know, this is one of their top selling products, Andy, on on Amazon. This this product is over a million dollars a year selling on Amazon. They have almost 50 resellers with names like Joe’s Discount Store and like all these weird, you know, resellers. That’s actually a reseller’s name like Ski, right? Like hundreds of these resellers that are selling their products on Amazon and you know who knows who these companies are. Discount Express Hardware and you know all these just goofy names. So these are not authorized, right? Okay. Milwaukee doesn’t know who these companies are. They may have gotten diverted inventory or something like that. Yes. Yes. stuff falling off the back of a truck or, you know, people buying it through, you know, whatever eBay and then putting it up on Amazon or buying it from Amazon and then reselling it on Amazon because they got it on Prime Day or something. You know, it’s Yeah. I mean, look, at the end of the day, does Milwaukee know who all these are? I can’t say for a fact they don’t, but they don’t, right? So, it’s it’s, you know, yes, it’s a lot of opportunistic sellers. And the sad fact is that these um you know the these companies um you know like Milwaukee they this is a rampant issue. Most people don’t know who these sellers are and this has real costs. It leads to retail price erosion, right? I mean you know this how do these companies sell? How does you know sell the product uh of of Milwaukee? Well, they drop the price. It’s the only differentiation they have. They’re not like, you know, a, you know, an expert in in industrial engineering. These these companies are just they they have the product. It fell off the truck and they have it in their garage and they’re selling it at a low price. That’s it, right? So, retail price erosion, channel conflict. Guess what? Milwaukee sells to Gringanger and Home Depot and Lowe’s and MSC Industrial and all these others. Well, guess what? When you’re negotiating a contract with with those companies as as Milwaukee, all of a sudden that company, they’re not dumb. the distributor goes on Amazon, they look at the price and they go, “What the heck? Look at all this.” You know, I’m, you know, I could buy it for cheaper on Amazon than you’re trying to sell it to me for.

So, channel conflict and that just deteriorates the brand reputation, the brand perception in the marketplace. Also, it leads to things like incorrect product information. Uh, we’re going to hear from our special guest in a minute about, you know, legal ramifications of some of these issues, right? You buy a product on Amazon, it may not even be the right product. My wife and I bought a volleyball. Andy, you know, we play volleyball, right? I’m way too short, but we play volleyball. And, uh, we bought this beautiful, what we thought was a beautiful, you know, uh, I can’t remember the make of it, but beautiful, uh, volleyball that’s supposed to be a high-end, you know, $50 volleyball. We got this cheap thing that had the same brand on it, but it was not the right, it’s not a actual product. Getting the wrong product, right? This is also what happens on Amazon. I’m getting fraudulent product or counterfeit. And then finally, you’ve got opportunity costs. If you’re not controlling this, you’ve got, you know, revenue and profit loss. You’re not actually selling the product. You’re not controlling your re your pro, you know, the presentation. You’re not actually the one selling the product. Therefore, you’re losing profitability. In some cases, the revenue is going to an alternative uh counterfeit item. So, there’s real real problems here. Why are brands not controlling this?

Well, we have our friend here. I got a question for you. Okay. Wait. Before we introduce John Groza, hold on. Hold on. Yep. Yep. Okay. Go ahead. No. So, my question is, what’d you do with the volleyball? Oh, we still we we threw it away. I mean, what are you going to do? We threw it away. So, you didn’t take any action to return that, get your money back, or anything? No, I mean, we issued a complaint against the seller, but All right. Well, because I’m I was looking at your list, and we’re going to ask John this question in a moment. I only saw one of those four things that was explicitly anti- buyer, meaning the other stuff was all in the seller. Don’t stop. Okay. as a buyer if I can return this thing or why do I care?

Okay. So, all right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hey, John’s got a few things to say about that. And by the way, Yeah. Okay. Put your kid in that like freaking defective bicycle helmet and let when they run into the freaking wall and they they have brain damage. Okay. Sure, Andy. Go for it. Right. So, we have to comment and and refute everything that Andy says.

We have an expert here, John Groza. Hey guys. who’s a partner at KJK. He’s a he’s a a lawyer. John, you and I have worked together on quite a few of these brand protection issues. KJK is a giant in the legal community. Um really fantastic firm. And John runs the intellectual property e-commerce practice. Uh John, why don’t you say hello and introduce yourself a little bit?

Hey guys, happy Ryder Cup Friday. Thanks for having me on. Um, always fun to talk about these issues and yeah, so I’m a partner at KJK. As Brian mentioned, we’re a full-ervice business firm, but we do have a particular expertise in this e-commerce or we term brand enforcement practice, which is national in scope. So, we’re helping manufacturers uh of all all all types, but typically, you know, with premium products that sit at the top of their respective marketplaces. Um, and we help them in in these situations shut down unauthorized resellers of their products, effectively protect their brand u by virtue of protecting their intellectual property and then um shutting down these these u bad actors who um have all sorts of negative ramifications on their on their brand as a whole and on their customer base and their distribution channels. Right.

Thank you for joining us today and you know you’re an expert in these areas. I mean what’s your reaction to this? Why why aren’t companies doing this? Why aren’t they controlling their brands? I mean, is is it just concern about, you know, backlash or is it is it concern about what what are your thoughts on that? I mean, this seems to be such an issue here. It’s it’s certainly become more of an issue over the last several years.

This practice is really kind of exploding. Um, you know, it could be a variety of reasons depending on organizational size and how uh how many resources an organization has. But, you know, there’s there’s ways to combat this regardless of the size of your organization. And it can it can stem from there’s hes hesitation can resolve from a variety of of reasons. Um, one feeling like you just don’t know where to begin, not really understanding that you have rights in your intellectual property, your copyrights, even if your product isn’t patented or patentable, still have rights in your copyrights and your trademarks. Yep. Which you should be vigilantly enforcing. Um, and there’s there’s a way to do this without getting sideways. Some people fear getting sideways with Amazon. That’s that’s not going to be an issue for you. Some people fear getting sideways depending on how they go to market with their distribution channels. In fact, I would argue that it’s going to put you in a better position with your with yourized dist distribution channels if you do police this effectively. Um, and then some people fear backlash either from the consumer, customer, or if they wanted to pursue and and oftentimes you’re not even pursuing actual litigation. But if you were to bring claims or you subjecting yourself to some kind of an antitrust argument or some kind of yeah counter claim and I would say in most instances, if you do it the right way, you you shouldn’t be as concerned about that.

Obviously, every every instance is is unique. Other times it’s it’s simple as uh you know budgetary concerns or budgetary allocations within large organizations where some of our clients were dealing with the legal departments or the e-commerce group or oftent times right right we’re kind of sitting in between uh both of those groups and it’s a uh budget whose bucket is this is it is this going to come out of to spend you know a little bit of money and um we find that it’s it’s always a wise investment really I mean not to sound self-interested but your brand is the most important thing you have going and I would argue even oftentimes more important in this day and age and in the world of e-commerce more important than the intellectual property um you know that would be potentially patentable how your product actually works yeah you know use Coca-Cola as an example for instance you know my understanding the the formula for the the drink has changed you know many times over the over the the decades but it’s that Coca-Cola brand that’s so iconic and so value behind it. Um that you’re not policing that then it’s it’s probably not wise.

Well, Andy has this misguided uh you know thinking about this is all bad for the buyer, right? Andy, you want to clarify your point of view there? My logic. So when I hear you’re going to do brand, you’re going to do channel enforcement, brand enforcement, I hear as a buyer fewer options.

Now, yes, some of those unauthorized sellers are probably shysters. Yes. And I’m going to get that defective product, but some of them, if you believe in the capitalist system and and uh self-interest, that some of them are are just selling the product and they’re going to stand behind this. So, you’re going to remove options for me as a buyer. Why is that in my best interest as a buyer? I would say quantity over or uh you know, quality over quantity, right? I mean maybe potentially slightly fewer options but better actual legitimate options from a consumer standpoint. I mean there’s a a huge consumer protection argument at play here and debate really is that I would say we you know companies that pay attention to who’s out there selling their products.

They’re providing that consumer with one the legitimate product. You never know if you’re buying it from ABC Tools or whomever used Milwaukee earlier as an example. I mean, those are products that are one, you know, Milwaukeee’s got a phenomenal brand. Very worth investing in for sure. They also sell products that um you know, if not used properly or if they haven’t been shipped or stored properly or they were damaged in the way they were handled or shipped as the product gets to the end user, there’s a consumer safety issue there. I mean, we’re not talking about volleyballs, right? We’re talking about potentially a handsaw or something that right, you know, if that was somehow altered by the the seller. You don’t know who these people are. I think your poll said 70% um have unauthorized sellers and then another 70 equal percentage didn’t even know who those people were. I mean, if I’m someone who’s invested in my brand, I have my own business. I don’t want I don’t want just any Joe off the street, right, being a uh a quasi ambassador for my brand. uh it’s just it’s not good business. And from a consumer standpoint, I think if I’m a consumer, I’d rather I want to know that I’m buying it from an authorized uh dealer or distributor, whether that’s e-commerce or brick and mortar or from the manufacturer directly because then I know that warranty is going to be viable, right?

If something goes wrong with the product in the future, I can go to the manufacturer. Now, many of these manufacturers probably say in their warranties and terms and conditions that if you don’t buy it from an authorized channel or or from us directly, warranty doesn’t apply, right? I think it’s a case by case basis. Maybe maybe a manufacturer would say, “Okay, we’ll honor it.”

But, um, and it also erodess the reputation as you know, as you mentioned earlier, because if somebody else is out there speaking on behalf of your brand, I’m a consumer. I don’t really care who, you know, this is a this is a Milwaukee product or whomever. I don’t care where I bought it. I’m still going to hold you accountable in my mind. I’m associate it’s a Milwaukee product, right? So, right. Exactly. Yep.

You know, it’s good good points, John. I mean, you know, Andy Andy’s just about, you know, um killing off all the babies, so he can just, you know, it’s it’s not mutually exclusive. I think it’s it’s a it’s a win-win for both the manufacturer as well as as the consumer. I mean, no, no, totally, totally agree.

So, let’s get the safety issue. I’ll seed that one. You don’t want a defective product in the panel. I mean, you want more options, but I don’t want to have bad product coming my way. And I think yeah, some products are, you know, a food product, for instance, there’s not only a safety issue, but a quality issue. might not be dangerous depending on what the food product is or a vitamin product some kind of supplement or a battery or something that needs to be stored and shipped in a particular manner whether there’s a temperature issue or you know battery product you know these could potentially if not handled properly good good points good points and you know so so yes Andy I mean I think ultimately you know John would argue and I I agree with him that you know it’s it’s all about you know it’s it’s about the seller, the brand, and the buyer.

I mean, you know, like the volleyball or, you know, there have been documented case studies or studies um and there was a Wall Street Journal article, I think a few years ago, Annie, if you recall, um talking about like, you know, motorcycle helmets that were fraudulent on sold through Amazon that were represented as a brand and people getting into accidents and dying.

I mean, this is like, you know, you got serious issues around this. John, I want one other question. So all these these arguments are valid and again I see there’s some good arguments here. Then why doesn’t Amazon care as much about this? I don’t know. Well, I was just going to mention I mean so you’ve seen you know Amazon makes their whole thesis is we’re we’re a marketplace.

We’re simply establishing a marketplace for other parties to transact. We’re not necessarily taking responsibility for these products. However, there’s, you know, we’ve seen as, as Brian mentions, there’s there’s been a backlash in the media, um, and, you know, some lawsuits, I believe, filed over the years where, you know, once you start heading down that consumer safety path, Amazon is is going to pay more attention to those types of issues and be more receptive to those arguments.

Well, the Consumer Product Safety Commission released um uh something recently, John, I don’t know if you saw it. I think it was last year or sometime early this year where they talked about, you know, Amazon now being classified as a distributor, meaning that they could be held held responsible or liable for products sold through the marketplace channel. And I don’t know if there’s any real legal weight to that.

But um at the end of the day um yeah the government seems to be after after that you know holding holding Amazon accountable for not only sales of products that they’ve bought in a vendor central or 1P model wholesale model but products that are you know that are sold through the marketplace model any thoughts on that was that directed to Andy I mean I have yeah I have thoughts I mean I think Andy doesn’t have any thoughts so yeah you can even Stephen Forson just said, “Great question, Andy.” So there you go.

Yes. Thank Thank you, Steve. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Stephen. Um, yep. So, not my Stephen. How about You know, that was a good question, too, right? Um, John, go ahead. No, you’re exactly right. And, you know, Amazon is not going to care so much if you come to them and say, “Hey, you know, what are you going to do about this? This these people are using our logo, right? our our trademark, and they’re not authorized to sell.” Amazon care about authorized sellers or not so much. they but if if you were to go to them and say listen like this is a serious issue we don’t know who these people are they’re selling this at a deep discount which you know again you don’t care about the price Amazon as much as you care about consumer protection issues though are right if there’s if there’s liability there and we’re not you know t we have a good working relationship with Amazon um and many of our clients have a hesitancy maybe to do things about this because they don’t want to find themselves sideways with the behemoth that is Amazon right when generating a massive amount of their revenue from their e-commerce sales on that thirdparty platform.

Um, but there’s a way to do that and we do this every day where we’re working in in conjunction with Amazon to address these issues oftentimes centered around, you know, potential consumer safety issues. So, yeah. Yeah, it’s nice to see the government in some way, you know, stepping in to Yeah. to give that a little bit of a backbone and some legitimacy. Well, let let me share the So, we asked our community this question, John.

We asked LinkedIn. We said, “Hey, you know, what is the biggest reason B2B companies fail to protect their brands online?” This is fascinating to me. The number one answer was they don’t feel like they have a way to enforce or police. Number two, no executive alignment. Nobody said I don’t have a foundation of IP or I’m afraid of backlash. IP protection, intellectual property protection, no way to enforce or police was the number one answer. Why companies are not protecting their brand? Does that does that just mean that they don’t understand that they have rights to enforce? What do you think your reaction? Yeah, I think there’s maybe some lack of understanding as to what they can do.

You hear the phrase um from new clients thrown around a lot. what they’ll say this this effectively is this just whack-a-ole like if we were gonna go after one another one’s gonna pop up to some degree sure but if you’re not doing anything I would argue doing something is better than doing nothing and I think a lot of a lot of companies would be surprised at how much progress they can make yeah and how much they can take back the buy box and shut down a lot of these folks because oftentimes what we see as well is there’s a maybe a vast universe of resellers maybe a certain percentage of those might be co-owned or might there might be, you know, the same there might be the same people under a variety of different storefronts. You can shut down one. You also set an example in that marketplace.

These these resellers oftentimes are in communication with one another. Right. Right. Chat rooms and forums that where they’re saying, “Hey, did you get a cease letter from AJK or law firm? How did you respond to that? What did you do?”

Wow. If someone says, “Oh, yeah, I got one and I just ignored it. Nothing else happened.” Then that’s not great either. But if you actually commit to a program where you’re sending letters, you’re tracking and monitoring uh your products on the marketplace. Yeah. You can really make a lot of head headway and and really recapture the buy box which ultimately is protecting your brand but protecting your profit margins in your online store.

Is  Amazon really the big culprit here? I mean do we see it this do you see this happening in other places too? Well, I would say Amazon is not the culprit. It’s it’s these sellers that are utilizing Amazon’s platform. Okay. But yeah, I think you have uh it’s you see it across all these other thirdparty platforms as well. We see it on Alibaba, Walmart.com. Yeah. Yeah. See it on um you know, and every platform is a little bit different and how how you approach it and address it. Sure. Um you know, see it on um eBay for instance.

Yeah. different ball game, but you know, similar. But but ultimately success, John, you can get control of this if you own the brand. If you’re if you’re a traditional branded B2B manufacturer and you own it, you have intellectual property rights to that brand. You’re a Milwaukee. Like, so Milwaukee has a path to clean this up, for example, even though it’s a mess right now. Sorry, Milwaukee. Um, right. I mean, they have Well, certainly. And I’m not I I don’t have any other than the screenshots you you posted. I I have not taken a look at their their presence and couldn’t speak to, you know, their universe of unauthorized sellers, but um yeah, if you have a brand that you’re investing in, you’re advertising, you’re buying ad space, and you’re yeah, you’re promoting your brand in the marketplace to your consumer base and your distribution channels.

I mean, this should be, you know, as big a priority as as your basic advertising budget. I mean, this is and it doesn’t even have to come very close to your advertising budget, right? There is certainly things you can do and it doesn’t people say you know what like I just I don’t love the way that the judicial system operates and the last thing I want to do was get some lawsuit and it’s long and expensive and stress but I mean it doesn’t even you can you can commit to monitoring a cease and assist program that doesn’t always have to result in litigation right and oftentimes when it does if there’s a particular reseller that’s been disruptive for years and very problematic you decide you want to take it to the next level and file a case. They’re oftentimes every case is different for sure, but these cases are typically resolved fairly early on. Yes. Right. Right. You settle out.

This week Brian Beck attended the Amazon Accelerate seller conference and came back to share the key themes that he took away from the event:

1) AI AI AI (and also AI)
2) Fulfillment is now a strategic pillar for the company
3) Will they commercialize their analytics capabilities?
4) 1p vs 3p is now a war