Trade shows and exhibitions have faced particularly large obstacles during the pandemic when compared to other event types, as they have struggled to translate their value and bring buyers and sellers together virtually, and many have simply cancelled instead of pivoting to virtual.
However, new research released by ExpoPlatform and LECTURA indicates that in industries that involve a lot of heavy machinery, such as agriculture, transportation, materials handling, and construction, machinery buying — which has traditionally taken place predominantly at large-scale in-person events and trade shows — is increasingly moving to digital ecommerce platforms.
The findings are based on a survey of 25,000 buyers in these industries and show that a significant amount of spending on machinery has shifted online — over half of buyers in the materials handling, transport, and construction industries (67 percent, 62 percent, and 56 percent, respectively) indicated that their preferred method of purchasing heavy machinery is digital channels, which includes self-service ecommerce, live chats, and video calls.
Face-to-face interaction remain the most popular with buyers in the agriculture sector, with 54 percent preferring it to digital when it comes to making purchases. According to the survey, the top three benefits of face-to-face interactions with sales reps are trust, a specific atmosphere, and being used to it, while the main benefits of ecommerce are the potential to adjust to individual workpace, the fact that it’s a safe alternative given the world health crisis, and that it saves time.
“Buying and selling rapidly moved online through the Covid-19 pandemic. Two years since it began, we wanted to understand the impact in B2B industries,” said ExpoPlatform Chief Growth Officer Luke Bilton in a statement. “While the research highlights that demand for in-person events remains high in these markets, the level of comfort with entirely digital transactions is surprising for industries which are usually considered to be fairly conservative.”
However, in-person events remain important to these industries and will not be fully replaced by digital avenues anytime soon — rather, they will increasingly be complemented by online options and alternatives as the digital revolution continues to take hold. Almost a third of survey participants indicated that they would return to in-person events but are also planning to take advantage of alternatives. Meanwhile, only a small percentage (construction buyers represented the highest percentage at 17 percent) of buyers said they would never return to in-person and rely solely on alternatives.
Petr Thiel, CEO of LECTURA, added: “We have seen an increasing trend towards digital marketplaces being widely accepted in heavy machinery sectors. Even though traditional marketplaces connecting buyers and sellers have existed for many years, there is no doubt about the ongoing shift to a new type of marketplaces with full-transaction models. Such platforms are smart software solutions for dealers, designed for direct machinery sale and enabling online payment in process.
“The pandemic has unpredictably changed the business environment as many on-site events and tradeshows had to be canceled or changed for online sessions and webinars, further digitalizing the heavy machinery industry. This latest survey confirms how digital is transforming buyer behaviour to an omnichannel future.”