Although in recent years companies have increasingly turned to digital channels to sell their products and services, until 2020, in-person meetings remained essential in B2B transactions. The coronavirus ended that dominance and produced an unprecedented digital transformation for both buyers and sellers; a before and after in trade between companies.
This was revealed by Stéphanie Chevalier Naranjo, Latin America Researcher at Statista, who, providing results from two surveys carried out by the consulting firm MCKinsey & Company, showed that in-person sales between companies fell precipitously in the first months of the pandemic. Of business leaders surveyed around the world, the proportion using physical sales fell from more than 60% before the pandemic to less than 30% in August last year.

The demand for distance sales and self-service channels gained ground during this period. What had begun as a remedy for the crisis, in a matter of months became a key modality for business-to-business sales and transactions and, although in the second half of the year face-to-face negotiations became feasible again, according to data from February 2021, electronic commerce continues to be the most used marketing channel in the B2B segment.