Kawasaki Engines USA Grows B2B Ecommerce AOV by 500%

How Kawasaki Engines USA Achieved a 500% Increase in B2B Ecommerce AOV

When manufacturers talk about digital transformation, the conversation often stays abstract. Kawasaki Engines USA made it concrete — and the results speak for themselves. Over the past decade, the company has grown its B2B ecommerce average order value (AOV) by an extraordinary 500%, driven by a deliberate strategy built on unified data, smarter systems, and the strategic application of artificial intelligence.

At Salesforce Connections 2026 in Chicago, Anthony Gondick, Senior Manager of IT Business Strategy at Kawasaki Engines USA, shared the inside story of how the manufacturer transformed its B2B commerce experience from the ground up. His session, titled "Drive Manufacturing Growth with AI-Powered B2B Commerce," offered a detailed look at what it takes for a legacy manufacturer to modernize and win in a competitive digital marketplace.

The Starting Point: Confronting Legacy System Fragmentation

Like many manufacturers with decades of operational history, Kawasaki Engines USA was not starting from zero — it was starting from complexity. The company's data lived across multiple legacy systems that didn't communicate with each other, making it nearly impossible to deliver a seamless, intelligent ecommerce experience to B2B buyers.

Before any AI could be applied, before any personalization could be offered, and before any meaningful ecommerce growth could be achieved, the team first had to solve the foundational problem: unifying their data.

This is a challenge that resonates across the manufacturing sector. Many industrial companies operate with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, product information management (PIM) tools, and customer databases that were built at different times, by different vendors, with no shared architecture. The result is data silos that slow down operations and make digital commerce nearly impossible to execute at scale.

For Kawasaki Engines USA, breaking down those silos was the essential first step in its ecommerce evolution. Only once the data foundation was stable could the company begin building the more advanced capabilities that would eventually deliver that remarkable 500% increase in AOV.

A Diverse Product Portfolio Demands a Scalable Commerce Strategy

Kawasaki Engines USA is not a single-category manufacturer. The company produces engines and components that power a wide range of applications — from motorcycles and jet skis to robotics, aerospace systems, and more. This product diversity creates both opportunity and complexity in a B2B ecommerce context.

B2B buyers across these different verticals have different needs, different purchasing behaviors, and different expectations for their online experience. A buyer sourcing parts for industrial robotics has very different requirements from a dealer purchasing replacement engines for recreational watercraft. Delivering a relevant, efficient, and high-value experience to each of these buyer types requires more than a single static catalog — it requires intelligent commerce.

This is where the shift toward AI-powered B2B commerce became not just a nice-to-have, but a strategic necessity.

AI-Powered Commerce: The Engine Behind AOV Growth

Gondick's session highlighted how artificial intelligence is at the core of Kawasaki Engines USA's current ecommerce strategy. The company is using AI to do three things in particular: enhance the customer experience, increase average order value and overall revenue, and strengthen adoption of its ecommerce platform among its B2B customers.

Each of these goals is interconnected. Better customer experience drives higher adoption. Higher adoption generates more transaction data. More data enables smarter AI recommendations. Smarter recommendations lead to larger, more relevant orders — which is exactly the mechanism behind a 500% increase in AOV.

In practice, AI-powered commerce in a B2B manufacturing context can take several forms:

Intelligent product recommendations: Suggesting complementary parts, accessories, or replacement components based on what a buyer is already purchasing — increasing the likelihood of multi-item orders.
Personalized catalog experiences: Surfacing the most relevant products and pricing tiers based on a buyer's purchase history, industry segment, or account profile.
Predictive reordering: Alerting B2B customers when it's time to restock based on historical order frequency, reducing the friction of repeat purchasing and increasing order volume over time.
Dynamic search and navigation: Using AI to improve on-site search so that B2B buyers can find the exact parts or components they need quickly, reducing drop-off and increasing conversion rates.

For a manufacturer like Kawasaki Engines USA, where buyers are often sourcing very specific technical components, the ability to guide a customer through a complex catalog efficiently is a major competitive differentiator.

Driving Buyer Adoption: The Often-Overlooked B2B Ecommerce Challenge

One of the most underappreciated obstacles in B2B ecommerce is adoption. Unlike B2C, where consumers are already conditioned to shop online, B2B buyers — particularly in manufacturing and industrial sectors — often have long-established purchasing habits. They may rely on phone calls, sales reps, or PDF order forms. Getting them to shift behavior toward a self-service digital portal requires more than just building the platform. It requires the platform to be genuinely better than the alternatives.

This is why Kawasaki Engines USA's focus on enhancing the customer experience is so strategically important. When a B2B buyer has a faster, more accurate, and more personalized experience online than they could get through a traditional sales channel, they naturally migrate toward digital. As adoption grows, so does the volume of transactions flowing through the ecommerce channel — and so does the data available to continue improving the experience.

Gondick's presentation underscored that driving adoption is not a one-time initiative. It requires ongoing investment in usability, trust, and relevance — all areas where AI can continue to add value as the platform matures.

Lessons for Manufacturers Looking to Scale B2B Ecommerce

The Kawasaki Engines USA story offers a clear framework for manufacturers at various stages of their own ecommerce journeys. Several key lessons emerge from Gondick's experience:

Start with data unification: No advanced capability — AI, personalization, or analytics — can function effectively on fragmented data. Investing in a unified data foundation is not optional; it is the prerequisite for everything else.
Choose platforms built for B2B complexity: B2B ecommerce has unique requirements around pricing, account management, catalog structure, and workflows. Platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud are built to handle this complexity at scale.
Use AI to serve buyers, not just to sell: The most effective AI applications in B2B commerce make the buying process easier, faster, and more accurate. When buyers feel genuinely supported, they increase their order frequency and value naturally.
Measure what matters: AOV is a powerful metric in B2B ecommerce because it reflects not just volume but the depth of each transaction. Tracking and optimizing AOV alongside conversion rate and customer lifetime value gives a complete picture of ecommerce health.

The Bigger Picture: AI Is Reshaping B2B Manufacturing Commerce

Kawasaki Engines USA's results are impressive by any measure, but they also point to a broader trend reshaping the manufacturing sector. B2B buyers now expect the same level of digital sophistication they experience as consumers. Manufacturers that fail to meet those expectations risk losing ground to more digitally agile competitors — including distributors and marketplace platforms that are increasingly encroaching on direct manufacturer relationships.

The companies that will win in B2B manufacturing commerce over the next decade are those investing now in the data infrastructure, ecommerce platforms, and AI capabilities that make buying easy, efficient, and personalized. Kawasaki Engines USA's 500% AOV growth is not just a headline — it is a proof point that this investment pays off in measurable, transformative ways.

As AI continues to evolve and B2B buyer expectations continue to rise, the gap between manufacturers who embrace digital commerce and those who don't will only widen. For companies watching from the sidelines, the Kawasaki Engines USA story is a compelling reason to act now.