Today’s B2B buyer is more digitally native than ever—and they expect all buying experiences to be extremely simple and incredibly online.
This is far from speculation. As Millennials and Gen Z buyers continue their ascension into lead procurement roles, they’re bringing their consumer-grade expectations to business purchasing. These digital natives don’t distinguish between personal and professional online experiences. They expect both to be seamless, intuitive, and fast.
However, B2B commerce isn’t just DTC with bigger numbers. While buyers are demanding more user-friendly platforms and purchasing experiences, the complexity of a typical B2B sales cycle is real, necessary, and can’t simply be wished away.
There are several nuances that make it impossible for brands to merely replicate their DTC experiences for B2B buyers and sellers. I’ll give you a quick summary to lay the groundwork for why the term “user-friendly” has such a different definition in B2B commerce:
The challenge isn’t eliminating complexity—it’s absorbing it so your customers don’t have to deal with it. Based on the conversations I have in my role as a solutions engineer at Shopify, it’s clear there’s still plenty of opportunity for vendors to make life easier for their buyers.
I’ve supported large B2B brands for over a decade. In that time, one thing has become abundantly clear to me: the best B2B experiences don’t replace the human element of the sales process, but rather enhance it by removing friction from routine transactions and reserving human interaction for where it adds genuine value.
There are a lot of reasons for this, but the primary one to me is the absurdity of the traditional B2B ordering process. Here’s what it looks like in too many cases:
In either case, once the salesperson has (hopefully) taken down all the order details, they’re left at the mercy of a neverending stream of approvers on the buyer’s end who need to review the order and beat them up about pricing before approving the purchase. The B2B landscape at large was essentially numb to this reality for decades, but the tide is turning quickly.
Sandy Shen, a VP Analyst at Gartner, writes that B2B buyers and sellers alike want to do more business through self-service channels because it’s more convenient for buyers and more cost-effective for sellers. My colleague Brandon Gracey added to this sentiment, somewhat in jest, by writing that B2B commerce should be as straightforward as sending a text message. No matter how you phrase it, it’s no secret to anyone in B2B that the artificial boundary between professional and personal buying experiences is collapsing faster than most businesses realize.
It’s important to acknowledge that digital transformations are hard and shouldn’t happen overnight. But as the B2B landscape continues to shift, there are two things I suggest to vendors as a starting point for improving the user experience for buyers and sellers:
At a minimum, B2B buyers shouldn’t have to ask another human being for access to basic account information. Today, modern buyer portals are relationship hubs where customers download invoices, request quotes, and maintain ongoing connections with their dedicated representatives.
Some of the world’s most beloved brands have completely reimagined their B2B operations through building these types of relationship hubs on Shopify. Nicolas Lukac, Director of Emerging Channels at Brooklinen, says that its previous B2B operations were order-forward, rather than customer-forward. With B2B on Shopify, Brooklinen’s B2B customers now have access to specific prices, products, and payment methods, giving them a more personalized experience through which they can place orders themselves.
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“Customers used to be so frustrated by our platform that they’d rather call us on the phone to place orders. Now we’re seeing customers be so comfortable with the experience that they’re placing orders for thousands of dollars worth of product from their mobile phones.”
The modern B2B landscape demands an online experience that balances simplicity with necessary complexity. The winners in this space won’t be those wh››o create the flashiest interfaces, but those who build systems that handle complexity behind the scenes while presenting simplicity to the user.
The future of B2B commerce isn’t just digital—it’s invisibly complex and deceptively simple. The gap between consumer and business purchasing experiences will continue to narrow. Smart B2B companies aren’t asking if they should adapt—they’re figuring out how quickly they can do it before their competitors do.
Want to continue the conversation about how B2B commerce can be more user friendly on Shopify? Schedule a call.
