Even though digital commerce had already been growing for several years, and with the arrival of the pandemic, the tendency of consumers to buy online has increased exponentially. This change in behavior has generated a hyper-acceleration in the digitization of agribusinesses.
Aware of the challenges that lie ahead in this new stage, the way agricultural products are marketed, linked to e-commerce, requires agribusinesses to adapt and digitalize in all their departments, changing the way they work.
With this new model, the distribution of agricultural products based on wholesalers must be replaced by much shorter parallel channels where technology is of great importance. That is why agribusinesses must implement a management system taking into account the new technologies, transferring part of their operations to the virtual environment.
E-commerce strategies in Agribusiness
There are several types of online business for the agricultural sector:
- B2B sales leads generated online. This is a sector mostly oriented to business-to-business, e-commerce facilitates the generation of connections that result in a sale.
- Online sales Payment and financing systems are in the process of development, so online sales in the industry are still scarce.
- Auctions. There are platforms with different auction modalities, from the classic auction, where buyers start from a base price, to the reverse auction, where a buyer publishes what they are willing to buy and suppliers compete for a sale.
- Listings. These are virtual spaces with extensive catalogs of products and services, with different suppliers for each one of them. They generally function as a meeting space and enhance competitiveness.
Benefits of e-commerce for Agribusiness
- Time and cost savings.
- To be open to the public on a constant basis and from any location.
- Increased customer acquisition, both online and offline, through increased visibility on the Internet.
- It is not essential to have a physical store or employees for customer service.
- Improved brand image and identity.
- Personalization and improvement of the customer’s online shopping experience.
- Increased customer segmentation depending on business type.
- Much lower start-up and maintenance cost than a traditional business.
- Optimization of the time dedicated to agribusiness.
- Facility to implement and develop digital marketing strategies.
- Facilitate product, feature and price comparisons.
Adapting to new changes in the consumer market and digitalization is a must for the agricultural sector. Learn the necessary tools about e-commerce and digitization in agribusiness in our Master in International Agribusiness Management.
