The IndiaMART Buyers’ Meet 2019 | What Indian B2B Buyers Want?

With the evolution of eCommerce in industrial purchasing, the buyer journey in the B2B space has evolved in the past two decades. As a part of its Customer First initiatives, IndiaMART hosted a Buyers’ Meet on December 6th, 2019 at its headquarters in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The event was insightful as procurement leads of various companies shared their side of buyer journeys through IndiaMART – the largest B2B e-Commerce marketplace in India.

The Intent – Customer First

IndiaMART has been the harbinger of change in the B2B space of India. Founded in the year 1999, the company has emerged as the first and the largest B2B marketplace in the country. IndiaMART has lead the digital transformation of medium, small and mid-sized enterprises from the front, by facilitating an eCommerce platform, at a time when the number of internet users in the country was as fewer as 500. As we complete two decades of our successful journey, we understand that our buyers have played a pivotal role in our success. They are the ones who’ve put their trust in our vision and spearheaded the digitization of the procurement process in their respective organizations.

The intent of this event was clearly to engage with our buyers, understand the awareness of key products among our frequent buyers, and take qualitative input and feedback.

A Day Full of Engagement

The IndiaMART Buyers’ Meet 2019 began at 11am with a Meet ‘n’ Greet with the Purchase Leads of leading MSMEs of the North zone. The event took off on a formal note, but soon the boardroom was filled with candid chats between Purchase Managers and the IndiaMART team. Personnel from the marketing department, UX department, and the HODs lead conversations with the guests who gave valuable insights and shared their stunning stories about how IndiaMART has made a difference in their everyday life.

Key Insights & Outcomes

We got a chance to interact with Purchase Leads from various industry backgrounds, who’ve been fulfilling their procurement needs from IndiaMART. Talking to them brought forward traditional issues that have crippled the Indian commerce and purchasing system, since time unknown. The menace of Milibhagat i.e. Collusion is a bad trade practice that eats away a company’s resources like a termite and decays the very spirit of every organization. 

IndiaMART – Fighting Milibhagat, one organization at a time

One of the key buyers, on the condition of anonymity, shared an incident when he had posted a requirement for MIG wire cables on IndiaMART, and got different quotes from online sellers. To his surprise, the quoted pricing was significantly less than what the company had been sourcing from offline vendors. Purchasing the item from online vendors looked like a prudent decision. However, due to old contacts with the existing vendor, the Purchase Manager didn’t get a green flag to switch to a new supplier, immediately. With unwavering grit to follow the right practice, the Purchase Manager uploaded the new quotes in the company’s SAP system, from where he got the approval in a matter of hours to source goods from a seller who had a competitive edge over others.

The practice was imbibed in the entire purchasing flow, and purchase decisions were made swiftly, without offending anyone.

The buyers did give their stamp of approval to the idea of organizing more Buyers’ Meets in the future. As per one, the meet brought a human connect between a technical interface that facilitated ease of B2B purchasing online, and the humans utilizing it.

IndiaMART – Google of Industrial Buying

If we have to talk about the word or precisely phrase of the day, most Purchase Leads stated that IndiaMART is the ‘Google for Industrial Buying.’ Mr. Umesh Gautam, CEO, Reckon Infra told that while in Google the top search results may or may not be useful immediately, the search results for any query at IndiaMART are 100% relevant and actionable.

“Connectivity is instant with sellers, and IndiaMART advisors are a great help,” shared Mr. Gautam. 

Mr. Gyan Prakash of China Construction Sausum shared that the procurement process has become “less time-consuming,” due to an abundance of suppliers on the platform.

While Mr. Rohit, from Cloud 9 Group of Hospitals, called the platform a perfect fit for Zonal Purchase Managers, who can “remotely connect with local vendors at distant locations in a matter of few hours.”

For Mr. Alok Yadav, Purchase Executive, Unicon Cranes, IndiaMART made “vendor empanelment transparent and easy.”

The Purchase Leads also shared constructive feedback, which HODs made note of, and will be channelized for further improvement of User Experience (UX) as well as User Interface (UI).

The Buyers’ Meet 2019 concluded on a great note with a lot of takeaways, insights, and most importantly happy faces and satisfied buyers!