As B2B commerce evolves, the traditional divide between business and consumer experiences is rapidly blurring.
With millennials now representing 71% of B2B purchasing decisions, buyers expect seamless, modern experiences that match their consumer lives.
Yet many merchants need help with legacy platforms that are clunky and unintuitive, while manual processes and bloated tech stacks limit growth opportunities.
Let’s explore how B2B commerce is changing, why the traditional B2B-versus-B2C divide may be more artificial than we thought, and what it takes to succeed in both markets.
What is B2B ecommerce?
B2B (business-to-business) ecommerce is when businesses sell products or services directly to other businesses through online platforms. B2B businesses include wholesalers, manufacturers, and distributors selling to retailers or other companies.
Brands using B2B on Shopify see up to a 3.2 times increase in reorder frequency compared to DTC orders, showing the higher volume and frequency typical of B2B transactions.
What is B2C ecommerce?
B2C (business-to-consumer) ecommerce is when businesses sell products or services directly to individual consumers through online channels. This includes retail websites, mobile apps, and social commerce where the end customer is a person buying for themselves or as a gift. Overall, B2C is more straightforward and focused on individual purchases.
What’s the difference between B2B and B2C ecommerce?
B2B ecommerce differs from B2C in the following ways:
- Breadth of audience
- Average (and negotiable) prices
- More people involved in the decision-making process
- Pressure to produce ROI
- Ecommerce messaging
- Payment options
- Retention and repeat orders
- Marketing
1. Breadth of audience
One of the primary differences between B2C and B2B is the scale of their audiences. B2C brands often strive to reach a broadly defined group of people—sports fans, fitness-minded moms, millennials who are into music, or kids in general.
These are large demographic and psychographic groups that each demand their own customer journey map:
“The biggest difference between B2B and B2C is your target audience and the size of that target audience,” says Brad Hall, cofounder and CEO of SONU Sleep. “For example, B2C is appealing more so to the masses, and to a greater demographic of people with different likes, dislikes, and purchasing habits.
“Alternatively, B2B is presenting to a smaller audience who typically share a common goal, and therefore require more tailored sales and marketing strategies. However, the advantage of B2C is that there’s many more fish to bait, and where one doesn’t catch, the others will.”
B2B ecommerce audiences are a lot more narrow. There’s usually a set number of buyers, with a pretty straightforward profile. For example, a B2B brand might only target ad agency owners or finance VPs at tech startups.
While you might think this would limit the potential of B2B online sales, the opposite is actually true. Revenue from online B2C transactions in the US reached $1.119 trillion in 2023. The B2B ecommerce market, however, accounted for over $2 trillion during the same period.
2. Average (and negotiable) prices
A B2C ecommerce brand might need to reach and sell to hundreds of thousands of people to crack their first million in sales because they’re likely selling products at a lower rate. In B2B ecommerce, it’s common for brands to have fewer than a couple hundred customers but still generate millions—sometimes billions—of dollars in revenue.
The average order value is one of the reasons B2B is taking off. Founder Maria Boustead says that on Po Campo’s B2C site, “Most people just buy one or two things. On the B2B, retailers order 15 to 25 items at once.”
Of course, there are always outliers—B2B goods that cost only $20 and B2C goods with a price tag of $15,000. But across most industries, B2B ecommerce purchases are much higher in price.
B2B ecommerce purchases are also often negotiable, whereas B2C customers pay the dollar price listed on your public-facing website (unless you’re running a promotion). B2B customers use large-value orders as a bargaining chip. Wholesalers get volume discounts. The more they buy, the cheaper each unit is to purchase.
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Most often, B2C ecommerce transactions have a single-step buying process that results in a shorter sales cycle. For B2B transactions, the buying process is almost always multi-step, and involves more communication than a B2C. This results in a longer sales cycle overall./p>
4. Pressure to produce ROI
Individual customers purchase products for themselves. Granted, while they don’t want any purchase to be a waste of money, it’s less of an issue for an individual consumer to make one single purchase. With B2B purchases, however, customers place a multi-unit order they need to resell and profit from. There’s much more pressure to make the right decision.
As Brian Folmer, founder of FirstLook, says, “B2C customers routinely buy products of all types, constantly testing things out and, in my case, buying on a whim. Emotions are a bigger part of their consideration. How does this brand make me feel, and do I support their mission?”
However, Brian says the thought process behind a purchase changes with B2B ecommerce: “B2B customers, on the other hand, are usually buying with a purpose in mind ahead of time. Not as many ‘this is fun’ type purchases. In that vein, a company making a purchase usually considers one of two things: Will this make us more money, or help us save money?
“It’s a bit more rudimentary compared to B2C buyers, though the purchases are usually much more expensive, which is why they try to leave emotion out.”
Much like B2C marketing, you’re proving the value of your product. The main difference in B2B ecommerce is proving the resale value of your inventory (high sell-through rates, good profit margins, or brand loyalty), rather than the benefits for the end consumer.
