B2B e-commerce is eating your sales job and you're still cold calling
While you're booking discovery calls, your prospects are self-serving 60% of the buyer journey—and your quota didn't adjust for it.
Here's what nobody wants to tell you: the B2B e-commerce boom in ANZ isn't creating sales jobs. It's replacing them.
The data is clear. B2B buyers are now completing most of their research and evaluation before they ever talk to sales. They're comparing specs, reading case studies, and checking pricing on vendor sites. By the time your SDR gets them on the phone, the shortlist is already set.
And yet, sales orgs are still structuring comp and quota like it's 2019. You're measured on meetings booked, demos run, and deals closed—as if you're still controlling the entire buyer journey. You're not. You haven't been for years.
What this actually means for your career:
If you're an AE selling transactional or mid-market deals, your role is getting compressed. The stuff you used to do in weeks one through four of the sales cycle? Buyers are doing that themselves now. Your value is narrowing to weeks five through close. Which means fewer deals per rep, or fewer reps per company.
Enterprise is safer, but not immune. Even complex deals are starting with self-serve research. The AEs who survive this shift are the ones who can add genuine strategic value after the buyer has done their homework. If your pitch is "let me show you how this works," you're already behind.
The move:
Stop fighting the self-serve trend. Lean into it. Get obsessed with late-stage deal velocity. Learn how to compress cycles when buyers come in educated. Develop vertical expertise that actually matters—because generic product knowledge is now available on the website.
Mid-market manufacturers in ANZ are already seeing conversion rates plummet because their sales process hasn't adapted to how buyers actually buy now. Their reps are burning out chasing leads that never needed a sales call in the first place.
Don't be that rep in 2026, wondering why quota got harder while headcount got smaller.
The real question: When your prospects can research, compare, and shortlist without you, what are you actually getting paid for?
Figure that out, or watch your OTE get "rightsized" when the next restructure hits.