The B2B Customer Journey Needs to Change: How to Reach Modern Ecommerce Buyers

Learn how to map and optimize B2B customer journeys for modern buyers. Discover key strategies for digital sales, personalization, and self-serve purchasing.

If you’re excited about business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce, you’ve got good reason: It’s a scalable, cost-efficient route to increasing profits and boosting your brand’s profile. B2B has boomed in recent years, andstudies expect the surge to continue steadily into the 2030s.

It’s no surprise business-to-consumer (B2C) companies are looking to get in on the B2B action. For many, it’s a promising—and rewarding—endeavor. But ecommerce leaders can’t simply take B2C best practices, apply them to B2B, and expect profits to roll in. 

The B2B customer journey varies significantly from B2C. B2C companies target a broad consumer market, while B2B companies target a smaller, industry-specific audience. The B2B sales cycle is typically longer and more complex—decisions are made by multiple stakeholders instead of one person tapping their smartphone. 

Understanding the customer journey is crucial. It calls for intuitive knowledge of your prospects’ decision-making process—the path they take to becoming customers. And repeat customers. 

Even if you’ve enjoyed success in B2C, it’s time to rebuild your customer journey for B2B.

How B2B customer journeys are evolving

The days of B2B sales taking place over phone lines and in IRL meetings are on the decline. Gartner predicts that 80% of B2B sales interactions will take place on digital channels by 2025, leaving buyers largely on their own as they navigate the early-to-mid-stages of the buying journey. 

Let’s get to know these buyers and what they’re looking for. 

Over 70% of current B2B buyers are millennials. Millennials grew up online—they led generational shifts from CDs to music streaming and from Blockbuster to Netflix. As B2B buyers, they expect fast and seamless experiences.

They also expect the personal relevance of B2C shopping: Attention-grabbing CTAs and immersive visuals are great. Features that remember and respond to their business’s unique needs are even better. 

Reshape your B2B sales process with customer journey mapping

Customer journey maps can help you better understand today’s B2B decision-makers. Similar to how a product roadmap outlines how you’ll develop a product, this form of mapping guides you through every stage of the customer cycle.

This graph shows the touchpoints a consumer has with a brand’s various departments.

What is customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping breaks down a customer’s path as they interact with a business and expresses it in a visual map. It helps businesses better understand the journey a prospect takes during the buying process, and how they ultimately become a customer. 

Benefits of creating a customer journey map

• A customer journey map helps businesses identify pain points and opportunities to improve the customer experience. 
• It provides a clear understanding of the customer’s needs, behaviors, and motivations.
• It can help businesses optimize their marketing strategies, improve customer retention, and increase customer satisfaction.

How to create a customer journey map

1. Define your buyer personas and identify customer touchpoints. Create buyer personas to better identify your target audience. Define their goals, behaviors, and motivations to understand their needs and provide solutions that meet those needs. 
2. Conduct research through customer surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
3. Map out your customer journey stages and analyze customer pain points and behavior. 
4. Set clear objectives for customer journey optimization. Develop an action plan and monitor and improve the customer journey continually.
5. Determine whether your aim is to improve the buying experience or launch a new product. Knowing what information you need from the journey map can prevent scope creep on a large project like this.

How to conduct a customer journey analysis to improve sales

Once you’ve identified key customer segments and potential action plans, the next step is data analytics. Here’s where to start:

Gather data from heat maps, Google Analytics, and other sources

• Use data-driven approaches to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and interaction patterns.
• Heat maps and Google Analytics can provide valuable data on user demographics, successful lead-gen channels, and popular pages. 

Collect customer feedback through reviews, surveys, and interviews

• Analyzing client reviews is an effective way to get insights into the buying journey and uncover pain points or areas of opportunity. 
• Conducting user surveys helps gather feedback on specific touchpoints in the customer journey.
• Conducting in-depth client interviews helps you learn their motivations, emotions, and challenges with your product or service. Perhaps your newsletter has been especially compelling in converting high-value customers lately—or perhaps customers would be more likely to purchase frequently if you introduced certain deals you don’t currently offer. 

Analyze customer behavior and pain points

Identify bottlenecks in the customer journey that are creating difficulty or pain points. You may consider creating an omnichannel strategy that enables all channels to work together and create a seamless customer journey.

Look out for these common pain points in the B2B customer experience:

• Seller-free sales
• Complex buying processes
• Lack of engaging and accessible content
• Lack of trust between businesses
• Order fulfillment and tracking woes
• Unclear product and pricing information

Measure and improve the customer journey

Now that you’ve gathered feedback and data, it’s time to put it into action. This stage is an ongoing process—here’s what to keep in mind: 

Monitor and analyze customer journey progress

• Track specific metrics that align with your business goals at each stage of the journey. Keep in mind key performance indicators (KPIs) for B2B ecommerce. 
• Use data to identify points where potential customers are dropping off, as well as areas for possible improvement. For instance, if you’re noticing a lot of abandoned carts, you may want to check for site lag and other sources of friction in your checkout page.

Use customer feedback to improve the customer journey

• Collecting customer feedback helps you understand a customer’s experience with your brand at different touchpoints.
• Use customer feedback to identify areas where leads face challenges and address customer concerns.

Continuously improving the customer journey through data analysis

• Continuously gather feedback on the customer journey from new and exciting customers to see if there are any other changes you need to make.
• Monitor your analytics to see if there are areas where customers consistently fall out of the sales funnel. 

The right B2B ecommerce software improves customer journeys

Choosing the right B2B ecommerce platform can be tricky. Remember: Today’s ecommerce buyers prioritize ease of use and familiarity. As you evaluate options, consider the following: 

Tailor wholesale buying 

Your buyers likely come from all over the world and have a wide range of needs: different markets, different channels, different expectations. You can make them all feel at home with Shopify. We give you the tools to present each customer with the pricing, currency, payment, and shipping options that are best for them.

Our customized dashboards make it easy to manage accounts, track orders, and reorder with one tap. You also get access to unlimited catalogs you can use to customize pricing and product availability through our intuitive admin interface or APIs.

Personalize storefronts

Whether your business is a B2B-B2C hybrid or fully B2B, Shopify gives you the tools to make powerful storefront experiences that keep your customers coming back. We help you synthesize your customer data into bespoke marketing and sales strategies, such as promotional messaging and section blocks. 

Offer self-serve purchasing

Here are some revealing numbers: 100% of buyers want to self-serve all or part of the sales journey. 83% prefer purchasing through digital self-serve channels. 

So yes, buyers want to handle their own buying—but this doesn’t mean you have to distance yourself from them. In fact, self-serve purchasing can actually bring you closer to customers. 

When Carrier migrated to Shopify, a Forrester case study found they developed closer relationships with customers via extensive workshops with business units to better understand their target audience. Shopify then helped design a roadmapping process to put those insights into action.

Shopify’s AI support tech facilitates instant customer connection. Out of the box, Shopify Inbox can answer customer questions and convert sales in real time. For more advanced requests, our automated ticketing systems can sort requests and fast-track customers to the proper support agents.

Easy customer retention

Shopify’s ease of use empowers your sales reps to strengthen their relationships with buyers. We give your reps the tools they need to make those relationships as valuable as possible: simple reordering and up-to-date product, pricing, customer, and order data. Eliminate manual hours and strategically connect with buyers at the right moments to get deals done. 

Tomorrow’s sales today 

B2B commerce has changed significantly over the past few years, but the customer-sales team relationship remains vital. Customers want to self-serve, and the best sales reps need to be multiple steps ahead, ready for the next restock or the next new product that will resonate with their clients.

Shopify is the only platform that can deliver these intuitive buying experiences. We’re flexible, easy to use, and ready to launch your customer journey plans into action.

FAQ on B2B customer journeys

What is a B2B customer journey?

B2B customer journey entails the complete end-to-end experience of a B2B customer from the first interaction with a business’ online presence to the customer’s final purchase. This includes a customer’s first awareness of the product, a customer’s first purchase, post-purchase support, and future purchases through the end of the working relationship.

What is the B2B buyer journey?

B2B buyer journey describes the entire process a business goes through when deciding to purchase goods or services from another business. It often begins with a business identifying a need or problem and exploring solutions, before multiple decision-makers select a supplier and make a purchase.

What are the five stages of the customer journey?

The five stages of the customer journey are awareness (when a customer learns about your brand), consideration (when a customer evaluates your brand), acquisition (when a customer makes a purchase), service (when customers are attended to, post-purchase) and loyalty (when satisfied customers recommend your product and become repeat customers).

What is the B2B customer life cycle?

B2B customer life cycle entails the stages a customer passes through en route to becoming a loyal customer. This includes being first made aware of your brand, learning about your brand, and converting them into customers.