Motivate eCommerce Orders from Contractors

How do you motivate contractors to place orders via your website? Make eCommerce easy for them.

Just like Amazon found the secret weapon to increase B2C eCommerce sales by closing the last mile so that, as consumers, we knew we could get our order in two days (years ago when Prime was first introduced), for contractors, eCommerce ordering must be simple and meet the way they order, not ask them to do something different.

For most distributors website-driven orders are a small percentage of their eCommerce business, and for contractor-oriented distributors it is even smaller.

Yes, that’s right, most of the high percentages you read from earnings reports and via publications focused on digital commerce include EDI, eProcurement, and other “electronic” commerce means.

Why? Because eCommerce leaders need to show that “their” business is growing and publicly-held companies know that their BOD, and Wall Street, expect these numbers to grow at a rate greater than the overall business (which makes sense as customers convert business from one order method to another.

Here’s the challenge with most online ordering systems … they are great for small quantity orders but, for more complex orders or larger orders with more line items, they are not customer friendly.

And for contractors, time = money, and hassle. They would rather have your inside sales team do the order entry for them.

Our recent State of Contractor Buyer eCommerce research report that we previewed recently and we’ll be releasing shortly (pre-register here to receive an advance copy) caught the eye of Justin Johnson of Motivate. In January Justin shared thoughts on how distributors could unlock online sales. They have a unique plug-in to eCommerce sites (works with any platform) that helps capture customer orders and eliminates the “hunt and peck” required of online ordering. If you want to accelerate your online sales and bring a market differentiator to your site, read on.

Distributors’ eCommerce Doesn’t Support How Contractors Buy

Customers won’t manually search and add 20 products to their cart – they want to upload a Purchase Order and buy dozens of items in seconds.

The latest eCommerce research from Channel Marketing Group makes one thing clear: buyers in electrical, HVAC, and industrial markets are fully onboard with digital. Nearly 67% have purchased materials online, and 64% have done so from mobile devices – whether from the jobsite, their truck, or their office. In short: eCommerce has officially arrived in distribution.

Distributors have invested heavily to make this happen, building platforms that offer the right content, pricing visibility, inventory data, and functionality that buyers now expect. But there’s one critical feature still missing – and it’s the reason many buyers still default to emailing purchase orders to inside sales rather than completing transactions online.

The Last Mile Problem in eCommerce

The research highlights that while customers are using distributor websites for price checks (67%), product research (51%), and inventory visibility (49%), far fewer are actually completing large, multi-line transactions online.

Why is this?

The answer is simple: today’s eCommerce platforms are optimized for browsing, not buying at scale.

When buyers want to order dozens of line items – as is common in electrical, plumbing, construction, maintenance, or project-based purchases – they’re forced to manually search and add each product one at a time. That workflow doesn’t reflect how they actually operate.

So, what happens instead? They bypass the eCommerce site altogether and email their purchase order to distributor inside sales teams – who then spend hours manually entering that order into the ERP.

It’s not a rejection of digital. It’s a reflection of the friction.

Digitization Stops at the Purchase Order (PO)

This gap between product research and actual purchasing is what might be called eCommerce’s “last mile problem.” Distributors have done an admirable job digitizing catalogs, search functionality, pricing, and inventory – but the moment a buyer has more than a few items, the experience breaks down.

Buyers are saying: “Let me buy the way I already work.” That means ordering from a spreadsheet, an exported BOM, or a PO they’ve already created – not retyping that information into a web form.

As one electrical contractor put it: “I’m not going to search 40 parts. I’ll just send the PO and let someone else deal with it.”

That’s exactly why we built Motivate eCommerce, a patent-pending solution designed to meet buyers where they are. Motivate is a plug-in to all major eCommerce platforms that lets customers upload unstructured Pos – PDFs, Excel files, images, even handwritten notes—directly to their cart. Buyers can also text, email, or even voice-command their order into the system. In seconds, dozens of products are matched, identified, and ready for one-click purchase.

“Motivate eCommerce has changed the way our customers buy,” said Tighe Greenhalgh, President at CentralComponents. “We didn’t change platforms – we just made the checkout experience work like our customers actually buy, and they love it!”

This friction point is a lost opportunity. A significant share of distributor eCommerce investments are focused on adding features like product videos, better images, or training content. But the recent data shows those rank among the least valued by buyers.

What is valued? Ordering ease, speed, and accuracy.

So why not enable buyers to upload their POs directly into the cart? Motivate does just that—solving the last-mile problem with a user-friendly, AI-driven layer that turns the purchase order into a shoppable experience.

Rethinking the Path to Checkout

If distributors want to shift more revenue online – and increase ROI from their eCommerce platforms – they’ll need to reimagine the checkout process for complex orders. Uploadable orders, drag-and-drop BOM tools, and AI-assisted cart builders are already starting to emerge in the market.

And the timing is critical. Channel Marketing Group’s data shows that:

• 59% of buyers are already purchasing from distributor websites
• Yet almost two-thirds consider online-only suppliers like Amazon Business, Grainger, and Zoro viable alternatives
• And most still prefer the relationship with a distributor – but only if it comes with digital ease

Distributors have a clear opportunity to differentiate – not just with relationships, but by aligning their digital experience with real-world buyer workflows.

Final Thoughts

eCommerce in distribution has come a long way. Buyers are engaged. Mobile is being adopted. The platforms are functional. But for large, complex orders, a better on-ramp is still needed.

Motivate eCommerce is giving distributors that on-ramp – bridging the gap between how buyers work and how eCommerce actually functions. The result? Over 300% growth in online sales, faster order cycles, and fewer abandoned carts.

The next evolution in distributor eCommerce isn’t just faster search or better UX. It’s giving buyers the ability to order the way they already work – by letting them submit the PO, and letting the system do the rest.”

About the Author

Justin Johnson is the founder and CEO of Motivate, an AI-driven order automation and sales  platforms for B2B distributors. Motivate empowers inside sales teams to reduce quote and order times by more than 45%, while its patent-pending ecommerce module has been shown to boost distributor online sales by more than 300%. Reach him at jj@gmotivate.com or visit www.gomotivate.com.

Take Aways

I recall a conversation when I conducted the research for the first eCommerce study I did. In talking to who was perceived as the industry leader (at least then), the comment was made that “10% of sales is the holy grail for eCommerce sales.” This was the benchmark once switchgear and lighting projects and wire / cable / conduit projects (due to pricing) were excluded. It was also felt that a certain percentage of customers, and counter traffic, would not change due to generational issues and contractor “lack of planning.” Seven years later, website ordering is still abysmally low.

But usage is increasing, and more sales are impacted by websites than ever before

The opportunity to consummate more orders online is viable if, to use Justin’s term, “the last mile” is solved and website functionality is more intuitive and can mimic buyer behavior. After all, outsourcing data entry / customer service is not a service to the customer.

If you want to bring online ordering to the jobsite … to the desktop (not just the computer) … to the jobsite trailer … or even in the truck while the customer is mobile, then Motivate may have a solution.

Additionally, if you implemented Motivate eCommerce, it should give your salespeople another reason to talk about your website to your customers … and your competitors’ customers as it would be functionality that, today, few have. And if you want to learn more about Motivate, late last year

The research shows the contractors are increasing their usage of distributor websites. Much has been invested into infrastructure. Much has been, is, and will be, invested into product content and value-added content. How much has been invested into actually capturing the order?