E-commerce was always expected to outperform overall retail, but positive growth in the second half seemed increasingly unlikely as consumer confidence, consumer spending and unemployment continued to worsen. Despite the greater savings and convenience usually found online, e-commerce was not immune from the effects of the recession.

B2Bs less experienced but more active
The “2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study” found that those B2B companies already using social media were much more active in the space than their B2C counterparts, especially when it came to microblogging, participating in discussions on third-party sites, blogging and monitoring company mentions on various social media.

Fifty-four percent of respondents currently use social media for marketing. That was up 9 percentage points from November 2008 and about 4 points from June 2009, showing a steady increase in B2B participation.

It's also interesting to notice that more than a quarter of US B2B companies are using social media to generate awareness, followed by customer engagement.