What Is B2B: Meaning, Examples, and Models (2026)

B2B means selling products or services to other businesses. Explore B2B models, real examples, and how B2B compares to B2C.

In 2026, the business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce market is valued at $36.86 trillion. Its way to $61.66 trillion by 2031, according to Mordor Intelligence. That’s more than three times the size of global B2C ecommerce, and the gap keeps widening.

What makes B2B structurally different is how that volume moves. B2B is defined by longer sales cycles, where a single deal travels through procurement, legal, and finance before it closes, and bulk orders, where one transaction might represent a quarter’s worth of inventory.

The new generation of business buyers also insist on the same seamless experience they get as consumers.

“[Buyers] used to be so frustrated by our platform that they’d rather call us on the phone to place orders,” says Nicholas Lachhman, associate ecommerce manager at Dermalogica Canada. “Now we’re seeing them be so comfortable with the experience that they’re placing orders for thousands of dollars worth of product from their mobile phones." 

Ahead, you’ll learn what B2B looks like today, the business models B2B store owners are using to grow, how B2B compares to B2C, and the challenges and trends in 2026 and beyond.

What is B2B?

B2B, or business to business, is a business model where companies sell products, services, and information to other businesses, rather than directly to consumers. If your customer is another business—whether they’re buying to resell, fulfill, distribute, or operate—you’re in B2B territory.

Some people think of software companies when they hear B2B. While the B2B world does include IT platforms selling email tools, inventory software, or analytics dashboards to ecommerce merchants, it’s bigger than software as a service (SaaS).

B2B industries also include:

• Wholesalers supplying goods to retailers
• Manufacturers producing bulk SKUs for private labels
• Logistics partners, suppliers, and agencies powering ecommerce operations behind the scenes

According to Forrester’s State of Business Buying 2026, the average B2B purchase now involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external participants, meaning deals move through procurement, legal, finance, and beyond before anything closes. 

But the upside is that ecommerce is the top revenue-generating channel in B2B for the fourth consecutive year, with online sales now accounting for 34% of a typical organization’s revenue.

Case in point: Filtrous. David Yadzi launched the business from his garage, selling lab-grade syringe filters to other companies. Today, Filtrous serves the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and other labs around the world with a modern B2B wholesale experience built on Shopify.

After struggling to scale or keep up while using BigCommerce, Filtrous migrated to Shopify and launched in just 63 days. It recorded:

• A 27% increase in organic conversion
• 12 hours of manual work saved weekly across sales and support
• Faster self-serve ordering and fewer customer calls

“We’re confident that, no matter how big we grow, or how many orders we get on a given day, Shopify could handle it,” says Yin Fu, Filtrous’s director of ecommerce. 

Examples of B2B

Here are a few notable B2B company examples:

• Faire. Faire connects independent brands with retail buyers. Let’s say you hand-make soy candles or linen aprons. Faire lets you list your products so boutiques and store owners can order in bulk. Buyers get net payment terms, while sellers get wholesale exposure. Consumers never touch the transaction.
• Hero Packaging. Hero Packaging sells eco-friendly and sustainable shipping mailers. It’s raised $1 million in investment funding and served over 50,000 businesses globally.
• Shopify. Shopify is a textbook B2B business. It doesn’t sell products to consumers—it sells the platform that powers thousands of B2C (and B2B) brands. Whether you’re a one-person candle shop or a global retailer, you’re buying a business tool to run your store. 

Benefits of B2B

The business-to-business model offers distinct advantages for businesses willing to invest in it:

• Stronger customer “stickiness.” B2B customers, once won, tend to stay. McKinsey’s 2026 B2B survey of more than 3,000 enterprise decision-makers found that nearly three-quarters report no intention to switch providers over the next 12 months, up from roughly two-thirds in prior years. 
• Defensible competitive moats. In B2B, the relationship often is the product. In a Q4 2025 Shopify survey of store owners,* B2B operators were more likely than other businesses to cite relationships with wholesale clients as their primary competitive advantage. 
• Built-in growth leverage for multichannel merchants. In the same Q4 2025 Shopify survey,* businesses running both B2B and B2C operations were significantly more likely to have scaled than those operating B2B exclusively, indicating that dual-channel strategies compound growth rather than divide attention.
• B2B buyers purchase at a fundamentally different scale. According to Forrester, more than half of large B2B transactions, those worth $1 million or more, are now processed through digital self-serve channels.

As of April 2026, stores on Shopify’s Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans can start selling wholesale using native B2B features, available directly in their admin at no additional cost. This includes up to three active B2B catalogs assigned via markets, company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing, ACH payments (US only), and vaulted credit cards.

An accent chair available for bulk purchase on Shopify.

Types of B2B business models

• Vertical B2B
• Horizontal B2B
• B2B2C hybrid model

Not all B2B businesses operate the same way. Some go deep into one niche market, while others cast a wide net. Others still blur the lines between B2B and B2C. Here are the three big B2B business models to know:

Vertical B2B

Vertical B2B businesses serve a specific industry or supply chain (also known as a “vertical”). Every product, feature, and customer touchpoint is tailored to a single sector. They go deep instead of wide.

Vertical B2Bs are tailored ecosystems that offer curated inventories, integrated logistics tools, and insights specific to their sectors. Examples include Filtrous, a medical supplies brand, and, Wilcor which sells outdoors and camping equipment. 

Peter Bendor-Samuel, founder of the research firm Everest Group, refers to vertical B2B as “the future of ecommerce.” However, focus comes with tradeoffs. Customer acquisition is expensive ($89, on average, for B2B ecommerce), and you’re dependent on suppliers to maintain a consistent flow of inventory. 

Horizontal B2B

Horizontal B2B businesses serve a wide range of industries with the same core solution. Instead of going deep into one vertical, they solve a common problem, like payments, packaging, or communications across multiple sectors.

Examples include:

• A payment gateway that handles transactions for florists, SaaS companies, and retailers alike
• A packaging supplier that sells branded mailers to cosmetics brands, bookstores, and coffee roasters
• A remote communication platform like Slack, which powers team communication for a range of companies including Shopify

The upside is scale. Horizontal models can expand quickly and serve a larger customer base without starting from scratch in every new industry. But casting a wide net also has its limits. Broad positioning can make it harder to stand out. Also, features that work for one industry might miss the mark for another.

B2B2C hybrid model

In the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model, you sell to businesses and reach the end customer either directly, through your partners, or both.

Amazon is one proof of concept. When Amazon opened its platform to third-party sellers, B2B brands could list products and access hundreds of millions of customers without building their own distribution engine. The B2B marketplace processed more than $83.1 billion in 2025.

App stores run the same playbook. Google Play and Apple’s App Store and let software companies distribute directly to mobile users inside a trusted ecosystem. They’re single marketplaces with two distinct audiences.

Whether businesses or consumers, buyers want the same things: value, speed, and transparency. B2B2C gives sellers a way to meet them where they are, while still owning part of the experience. The main challenges are clean pricing logic, shared inventory visibility, and messaging that works for both a procurement lead and a first-time shopper.

B2B vs. B2C

The clearest way to grasp why B2B and B2C strategies diverge is to look first at who’s on the receiving end.

As Brad Hall, cofounder and CEO of Sonu Sleep, explains: “The biggest difference between B2B and B2C is your target audience and the size of that target audience. 

“B2B presents to a smaller audience who typically share a common goal, and therefore require more tailored sales and marketing strategies,” Brad says. “The advantage of B2C is that there are many more fish to bait, and where one doesn’t catch, the others will.”

Here are the main differences between B2B and B2C ecommerce:

Aspect	B2B	B2C	Examples
Sales process	Multiple stakeholders—legal, procurement, IT	One person	B2B: A retailer’s ops team approves a bulk packaging order. B2C: A customer buys a phone case from Casetify.
Sales cycle	Ranges from a few weeks to months and sometimes even years	Short	B2B: A chain of salons negotiates skincare supply with Luminance. B2C: A shopper buys a cleanser from Luminance via its DTC site.
Pricing	Tiered, negotiated, or personalized per account	Fixed and public; same for all customers	B2B: Faire offers volume-based pricing for candles to boutique retailers. B2C: The same candle is sold at retail price on Etsy.
Relationship type	Long term; built on recurring orders, service, and reliability	Transactional or loyalty driven	B2B: CeramicSpeed supplies parts to bike shops each month. B2C: A cyclist buys a single part from CeramicSpeed’s site.
Purchase flow	Begins with a formal request for proposal (RFP), a structured document inviting vendors to submit bids, which is followed by internal evaluations, compliance checks, and contract negotiations	Influenced by reviews, peer recommendations, and fast checkout options	B2B: A beverage brand solicits packaging proposals from three vendors. B2C: A shopper compares ratings and buys a water bottle from Hydro Flask.

While B2B may feel more structured and slower-moving than B2C, it also opens the door to larger order values, recurring revenue, and deeper client relationships. Businesses using Shopify B2B see up to a 4.1 times increase in reorder frequency compared to DTC orders, highlighting the higher volume and repeat nature of business buyers.

Take it from Bernie Schott, owner and CEO of Reech, who says, “Reech customers typically buy a yoga mat every one to two years max, but a studio that stocks Reech mats will typically purchase 10 every two months.” 

B2B doesn’t exclude B2C

You don’t have to choose between selling to businesses and selling to consumers. Many companies do both and do it well.

For example, a cellphone brand could ship thousands of devices to a telecom provider and also sell directly through its own online store. It’s the same goods or services, just packaged differently for each audience.

For example, CeramicSpeed, a premium bicycle parts manufacturer based in Denmark, sells to individual riders, bike shops, and OEMs across more than 50 countries. It does it all from a single Shopify store.

Its needs are specific:

• Browsing by terrain type for B2C shoppers
• Searching by SKU
• Fast, frictionless reordering for B2B clients

Since switching to Shopify, CeramicSpeed streamlined both sides with impressive results:

• 29% increase in average B2C order value
• 33% boost in B2C conversion rate
• 5% faster B2B order placement through sales reps using the Shopify mobile app

CeramicSpeed now runs one site, powered by integrations like Klaviyo and Shopify Subscriptions, with tailored workflows for each buyer type. “Our sales reps drive to different bike shops in America, and one feature we could not live without is the Shopify app,” says Lukas L. Dalsgaard, CeramicSpeed’s ecommerce specialist.

Common B2B challenges

• Longer sales cycles
• Customer concentration risk
• Customization at scale

These are the most common hurdles in B2B and how to handle them:

Longer sales cycles

“Often, B2C ecommerce transactions have a single-step buying process that results in a shorter sales cycle,” says Kevin Callahan, cofounder of Flatline Van Co. “For B2B transactions, the buying process is almost always multistep, and involves more communication than a B2C. This results in a longer sales cycle overall.”

According to Sopro’s 2025 research, nearly two-thirds of B2B leads take at least three months to decide to purchase, and one in five waits over a year. The buying journey is rarely linear. Prospects loop back, loop in new stakeholders, and restart evaluations as internal priorities shift. 

The 6Sense 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report puts the average B2B sales cycle at 10.1 months, down from 11.3 months the year before.

That extended timeline has a direct affect on cash flow. According to a Q4 2025 Shopify survey of store owners,* 70% of B2B operations use credit for cash flow management, compared to 60% of B2C-only businesses. 

To handle these hurdles:

• Invest in search engine optimization (SEO). Consistent B2B blogging, nine or more posts per month, results in a 35.8% year-over-year increase in Google organic search traffic. That approach significantly outperforms less frequent blogging (one to four posts per month), which yields a 16.5% increase. Even low-volume, technical keywords can bring high-intent traffic from multiple decision makers. 
• Give potential buyers a clear path forward, without needing a call every time.Shopify’s B2B tools let you send draft orders, offer net payment terms, and enable self-serve reordering from day one. 
• Consider a trial. Forrester found that more than 60% of business buyers use trials to evaluate potential solutions, ranging from paid bespoke sandboxes to usage-based trial periods. It’s more prominent among bigger deals: 78% of buyers who make purchases of $10 million or more engage in a trial first.

Customer concentration risk

If a buyer delays payment, renegotiates terms, or walks away, it’s a direct hit to your cash flow. You don’t want one buyer holding the purse strings. Diversify your book to protect your margins.

To mitigate risk: 

• Track account-level revenue regularly. A monthly spreadsheet can reveal which buyers are driving what sales. Use Shopify’s customer sales reports to track revenue distribution across your accounts. 
• Build more balance. Branch out into new segments, stagger contract lengths, or proactively grow midsize accounts, so you’re not leaning too hard on one purchasing company.

Customization at scale

A May 2025 study from Adobe and Forrester found that 71% of of B2B buyers say brands should understand when, where, and how they want personalized interactions. Yet 53% say brands still don’t understand which moments actually deserve personalization.

That’s likely because customization is a tall order when you’re managing dozens or hundreds of unique buyer accounts. A Q4 2025 Shopify survey* revealed that 63% of B2B operations work with professional accountants, compared to 55% of B2C-only businesses. This reflects the sophistication required to manage account-level pricing and multi-entity billing at scale. 

B2B businesses need to standardize where they can by building reusable templates for quotes, catalogs, and tax rules, then layering on account-level customizations.

However, only 47% of B2B leaders say their current platform is very effective, according to Shopify’s research with B2B Online and Deloitte Digital.

Without needing a developer on standby, Shopify’s B2B ecommerce platform allows you to tailor buying experiences. You can:

• Assign custom catalogs and price lists to each buyer
• Configure net payment terms and tax settings by location
• Integrate customer relationship management (CRM) tools to centralize buyer insights

To take advantage of these features, furniture brand Industry Westmigrated its trade storefront to Shopify and rolled out custom catalogs personalized by buyer type: architects, commercial designers, and bulk buyers. In the first year, B2B revenue from online orders climbed 90%, and average order value rose 20%.

“I’ve become a Shopify superuser,” says chief marketing officer Ian Leslie. “I feel so comfortable creating different product templates, page templates, and category templates. That’s something you never could do in Magento, and it’s been a huge win for us. Now we have different product templates based on collections or categories.”

*Based on a November 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.

What is B2B FAQ

What exactly does B2B mean?

B2B refers to business-to-business relationships where companies sell products or services to other companies rather than individual consumers. These transactions often involve structured business processes, longer decision cycles, and collaboration between sales professionals and buyers.

What is B2B and what are some examples?

B2B is when businesses connect to sell goods or services that support operations, like software, logistics, or raw materials. Examples include:

• A manufacturer buying raw materials from a supplier
• A SaaS company selling tools to sales teams
• A wholesaler supplying products to an ecommerce store

What is B2B, B2C, C2C, and D2C?

The key differences come down to whom you’re selling to and how relationships are managed. These terms describe different ways companies sell:

• B2B (business-to-business): Companies sell to other businesses.
• B2C (business-to-consumer): Brands sell directly to individual consumers.
• C2C (consumer-to-consumer): Individuals sell to each other via platforms like marketplaces.
• D2C (direct-to-consumer): Brands sell directly to potential customers through their own ecommerce store, bypassing intermediaries. It’s also known as DTC.

Is Coca-Cola a B2B or B2C?

Coca-Cola operates as both B2B and B2C:

• B2B: Coca-Cola sells to retailers, restaurants, and distributors, relying on strong relationship management, repeat business, and a dedicated support team.
• B2C: The brand also markets directly to individual consumers through branding and content marketing.

Is Amazon a B2C or B2B?

Amazon also operates in both spaces:

• B2C: Amazon sells products directly to individual consumers, using customer data to personalize recommendations and improve conversion.
• B2B: Through Amazon Business, Amazon supports companies with bulk purchasing, lead generation, and tools for managing existing customers.