**London**: The 2025 State of B2B E-commerce Report by NuOrder highlights brands’ evolving wholesale strategies, prioritising stability and customer loyalty over rapid expansion. The findings indicate a shift towards cautious growth in a challenging economic landscape, emphasising operational efficiency and the potential of AI in optimising processes.
The 2025 State of B2B E-commerce Report, released by NuOrder by Lightspeed, seeks to provide insights into how brands are adapting their wholesale strategies to navigate modern challenges of digital transformation, profitability, and operational efficiency. The report highlights a notable shift towards conservative, strategic growth as brands increasingly prioritise risk mitigation and operational stability over rapid expansion.
The 21-page document, titled “Why stability is the new growth,” presents an extensive analysis of the evolution of brands over the past three decades in response to shifting consumer demands. Post-pandemic strategies reveal a departure from the mass consumerism era of the 1990s and 2000s, which heavily emphasised back-end infrastructure aimed at maximizing product output. Instead, businesses are moving towards a hybrid model, utilising wholesale for stability, direct-to-consumer channels for customer engagement, and marketplaces for expanded reach.
Key findings from the report indicate that while 57% of brands surveyed are investing in their retail relationships, only 34% have plans to expand into new geographic territories. This suggests that growth strategies are increasingly focused on cultivating customer loyalty and diversifying sales avenues, rather than purely optimising their operational capabilities. It was noted that operational enhancements, such as developing new warehouses or production facilities, are becoming less of a priority, highlighting a trend towards growth strategies that are more customer-facing rather than centred on back-end improvements.
Wholesale is identified as an essential component in stabilising markets, with its role transitioning from being a primary growth driver to an optimisation tool that helps control costs and improve distribution efficacy. In the current cautious economic climate, brands are prioritising strategic growth and structured partnerships over rapid scaling through marketplaces or digital transformation initiatives.
Chris Akrimi, General Manager for B2B at NuOrder, indicated that businesses are increasingly focused on achieving sustainable growth while maintaining robust financial performance. He stated, “Strategic, measured expansion is now a key consideration for both existing and new clients, a trend we see consistently across our portfolio.” Akrimi elaborated that brands are committed to fortifying wholesale and retail relationships with an emphasis on optimisation, adopting a flexible approach to pricing, contractual terms, and inventory commitments to better navigate ongoing economic uncertainties.
Brands are increasingly prioritising ‘quality over quantity’ in their partnerships, opting for retail collaborators that invest in brand storytelling, focus on product sell-through, and protect brand integrity. This strategy is aimed at cultivating long-term, sustainable growth in contrast to simply seeking extensive distribution.
Additionally, the report explores the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing operational efficiency and personalisation. However, the authors express concern that brands have been slow to adopt AI technology. They caution that without substantial investments in digital transformation and AI-driven efficiencies, the current evolution of B2B e-commerce cannot fully realise its potential.
Andrea Luna, Client Success Team Lead at NuOrder, noted that many brands struggle not due to technical limitations but because of a lack of a digital-first mindset. She remarked that the real challenges stem from operational inertia and fragmented tool adoption, often treating digital platforms as supplementary rather than transformational. “Success requires more than just onboarding users; it means equipping teams to leverage the platform’s full capabilities,” Luna emphasized, advocating for the integration of intelligent, automated workflows to enhance efficiency and drive user adoption across all stages of the B2B commerce process.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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