Business buyers have wildly different expectations, demands, and pain points compared to retail consumers. The messaging you’re using needs to reflect this—as does the sales process you use to convert business-to-business (B2B) leads into high-value customers. Part of this means shifting online.
Ecommerce is dominating the B2B sales market. Last year, online B2B sales increased by 10.5% year over year. By 2028, an estimated 27.5% of all B2B product sales will take place through an ecommerce website.
This guide shares how to position your business in the best light, attract customers to your storefront, and convert them—all without having a sales representative heavily involved in the B2B sales process.
What is B2B sales?
B2B sales is the process of selling products to another business, either for their own use or resale. The sales cycle for B2B transactions is of higher value and takes much longer to finalize than business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. As a result, it requires a unique sales process and framework.
Examples of B2B sales
Popular examples of B2B sales include:
- A manufacturer selling product parts to another business
- A retailer selling its products to a wholesaler, which adds its own markup before reselling products to its own customers
- A merchant selling products to be used by a business, such as office chairs or computer equipment
- A business selling software to other businesses, such as accounting software
The B2B sales process
The B2B sales process is a framework that ecommerce brands use to sell to other businesses. It starts with prospecting and qualifying leads, and concludes with negotiation to ultimately close the deal.
Gartner outlined a typical B2B sales funnel using the jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework:
- Problem identification: “We need to do something.”
- Solution exploration: “What’s out there to solve our problem?”
- Requirements building: “What exactly do we need the purchase to do?”
- Supplier selection: “Does this do what we want it to do?”
- Validation: “We think we know the right answer, but we need to be sure.”
- Consensus creation: “We need to get everyone on board.”
Here’s how that logic applies to the B2B selling process:
1. Lead generation
B2B lead generation, known as prospecting, is the process of identifying and reaching out to potential customers who might benefit from your product or service. Marketing teams target companies, find decision-makers, and initiate contact—typically through cold emails, calls, LinkedIn, or networking—to generate interest.
2. Qualifying
Qualifying determines whether a potential B2B buyer is a good fit for your product using factors such as their needs, budget, decision-making authority, and timeline. This helps B2B sales teams focus their time on leads with the most buying potential.
3. Presentation or demonstration
At this stage of the B2B sales process, reps showcase how their product or service solves the prospect’s specific problems or meets their needs. It often includes a tailored pitch, live demo, or proposal.
4. Quoting and negotiating
At this point, the buyer presents their findings to stakeholders. This is when the buyer and seller discuss terms such as pricing, contract details, delivery timelines, and support. Reps might need to ease these sales objections and negotiate prices to get the sale across the finish line.
5. Closing the sale
Once a B2B buyer has decided to make their purchase, they’ll do so either through a self-serve online portal or with assistance from their sales rep. This is when the deal is finalized, payment terms are agreed upon, and the customer is handed off to onboarding or customer success teams. Their order is then ready for fulfillment.
B2C vs. B2B sales: what’s the difference?
The B2B sales process differs from B2C, in which a single consumer decides to make a purchase from an online store.
Key differences between B2B and B2C sales efforts include:
- More people are involved in B2B purchase decisions. From identifying a problem to comparing solutions, the average B2B decision-making process involves 11 people or more. If you’re selling to wholesale customers, for example, that might include the retailer’s founders, merchandising managers, accounting executives, and store managers.
- Longer sales cycles. Many B2B sales cycles span up to five months. Buyers require regular interactions with a brand, often across different channels, before they commit to a B2B sale.
- Business buyers demand deep industry knowledge. There’s more risk associated with spending business dollars (as opposed to a consumer’s disposable income). Your B2B sales team needs intimate knowledge of the product and industry you’re operating in to ease ROI concerns.
“Previously, our B2B orders were mainly processed manually,” says Finn Christensen, digital marketing coordinator at DARCHE. “Retailers would email or call to place orders, and our customer service team would assist them. Now, retailers feel comfortable placing orders online via the Shopify B2B function. This provides them with an easier, more seamless sales experience, and helps build trust with our brand. We're now a more modern business.”
B2B sales tips and strategies
- Prioritize self-serve B2B sales
- Take B2B sales omnichannel
- Employ a B2B sales team for extra support
- Offer flexible payment terms
- Offer low first-order minimums
- Make reordering easy to encourage retention
- Automate the B2B sales process
1. Prioritize self-serve B2B sales
Buyers no longer need interaction with a sales rep to ease sales objections pre-purchase. Their comfort with self-serve spending has jumped. According to McKinsey, most buyers are willing to spend more than $500,000 in a single transaction on digital channels.
Still not convinced? Consider this data:
- Of the 71% of B2B ecommerce brands that operate an online store, more than a third of their revenue derives from it.
- At any stage of the B2B buying journey, one-third of customers want digital self-serve options.
- Forrester estimates that in 2025, half of large B2B purchases will be processed through these self-serve channels, such as the vendor’s website or marketplace.
Cater to business customers who prefer self-serve with a B2B storefront alongside your main DTC website. With Shopify, you can run both sides of your business, leveraging the same product catalog and features from a single back end. The only difference is B2B buyers log in to their company profile to view wholesale pricing, discounts, and streamlined B2B checkout.
“Thanks to an exceptional self-serve experience and features like Shopify Flow, the team can spend more of its time selling,” says Yin Fu, director of ecommerce at Filtrous.
2. Take B2B sales omnichannel
Millennials and Gen Z, both of which grew up around the tech boom of the 2000s, are now involved in 71% of B2B buying processes. And they want the same shopping experiences they enjoy when buying products for themselves.
According to McKinsey, B2B buyers use an average of 10 interaction channels throughout a single buying journey, up from just five in 2016. More than half of those buyers want the ability to seamlessly switch between channels—and they’re more likely to switch vendors if that isn’t an option.
An omnichannel approach to B2B sales helps deliver on those expectations. The easier it is for buyers to purchase through channels they’re familiar with, the higher the chance of your B2B sales team converting them.
You’ll make your products more accessible to B2B buyers, and be in their eyeline during their daily routines, by offering sales support at each touchpoint they’re already using, be including:
- B2B ecommerce websites
- Wholesale marketplaces such as Faire, Abound, and Creoate
- Social media platforms
- Mobile apps
- In-person events, such as trade shows or conferences
- Online chat and email
Aside from offering the omnichannel experiences that B2B sales requires, diversification also helps mitigate the risk of overreliance on a single platform.
Wholesale marketplaces, for example, connect B2B customers with businesses, yet charge a fee for each transaction that takes place on their platform. Sellers are also at the mercy of the marketplace’s rules, limiting the experiences you give to customers. Integrating this sales channel with an ecommerce website alleviates those challenges—giving you unfiltered access to buyer data and total ownership of the customer experience.
3. Employ a B2B sales team for extra support
An increasing number of buyers are making business purchases unassisted through a retailer’s wholesale storefront. That’s not to say they’re forgoing sales and support reps entirely. Roughly 41% of buyers prefer in-person channels when interacting with new suppliers, and 40% prefer those channels when purchasing for the first time.
Employ a team of B2B salespeople to guide customers through the purchasing journey, should they require help. Your team can help in these ways:
- Attending in-person events, such as trade shows, to be the face of your brand
- Generating qualified leads via cold prospecting or outreach
- Following an account-based sales strategy that connects with buyers on a personal level
- Reconnecting with leads that haven’t contacted you in a while and informing them of new stock that’s selling well for other B2B customers
“Roughly speaking, about 30% of our revenue comes from ecommerce, and 70% is our sales team,” says Ian Leslie, chief marketing officer at Industry West. “But it’s all without cold calling—and we’ve only done one or two trade shows in all of our years.”
This approach doesn’t just apply to new B2B customers. Have your sales reps engage with existing B2B customers to squeeze more customer lifetime value out of each one. Whether they’re giving advice on how to resell your products or notifying them of changing consumer trends, strong relationships require two people to be involved. That’s not always possible when offering self-serve B2B sales in a silo.
4. Offer flexible payment terms on B2B orders
Unlike DTC sales, business buyers expect flexible payment terms. This is typically net 30, 45, or 60 days after ordering, which gives B2B customers plenty of time to resell your products and generate a profit.
Remove this prepurchase friction by offering flexible payment terms. Use Shopify’s B2B customer portal functionality to:
- Allow B2B customers to place orders with delayed payment dates
- Entice new buyers to purchase with wholesale-only first order discounts
- Cater to preferred B2B payment methods like bank transfer or credit card
Automatically configure these payment terms to scale your B2B sales strategy. Instead of manually setting net 30 payment terms for resellers looking to buy your products, configure a payment date 30 days later if new buyers tick “reseller” when creating their business profile.
Luxury fragrance brand WHO IS ELIJAH, for example, previously operated their B2B storefront using Salesforce. But they ran into challenges—like the inability to price products differently in overseas markets, influenced by factors such as state taxes and tariffs.
“One of the reasons we needed custom pricing for our wholesale customers was that many of them fall into different B2B categories; some have hard margins, and some we can control,” says the brand’s technical leader, Brylee Lonesborough. “The custom catalog capabilities in B2B on Shopify meant we could set individual pricing categories and attach them to the various types of B2B customers we have so they get a more personalized experience.”
Since migrating their B2B sales operation to Shopify, WHO IS ELIJAH experienced 50% year-over-year international growth for B2B orders—all while boosting revenue from their DTC store by 400%.
5. Offer low first-order minimums
Wholesale customers pay less for products because they purchase in bulk. However, committing to an order worth $5,000 or more from a new retailer is a big risk for any B2B customer. They need to feel confident they’ll make a return on such a big investment.
Evaluate whether you can offer low minimum order quantities (MOQ) and minimum order values (MOV) for first-time buyers. If your typical MOQ is 50 units and your MOV is $5,000, for example, lowering that to 50 units and $2,500 opens the door for smaller businesses to purchase products from your wholesale channel.
If you set lower MOQ and MOV for first-time customers only, you’re not sacrificing profit margins by selling wholesale in lower quantities either. Only the first order qualifies for the deal—once they’ve gathered firsthand experience selling your products, your B2B customers can buy into higher order minimums.
6. Make reordering easy to encourage retention
Not all B2B sales have to come from new buyers. Forrester research shows that 61% of all B2B revenue comes from existing customers through expansion and renewals.
When you prioritize relationships with existing business customers, loyalty becomes the default. You’ll earn more revenue from each wholesale customer—without constantly needing to fill your B2B sales pipeline.
Use Shopify to build an online customer portal that allows B2B customers to:
- Invite their coworkers to their company profile: With the right permissions (such as “ordering only”), B2B buyers can ease the hurdle of getting sign-off from multiple people in the buying process.
- View their order history: Buyers can download invoices, set their tax ID, and list tax exemptions—all without drawing resources away from your sales team.
- Shop similar products: Cross-selling and upselling are typically reserved for DTC sales. Offer those same sales experiences to B2B customers with Shopify apps. You’ll increase average order value and create a stronger attachment to your brand, both of which naturally encourage B2B buyer retention.
TileCloud relies on these features to drive sales through personalized pricing and targeted wholesale promotions. Their Shopify-hosted self-serve wholesale portal has contributed to a 24% year-over-year increase in B2B customer signups, with a 34% increase in average order value over the same period.
7. Automate the B2B sales process
The B2B sales cycle can be time consuming. Buyers average one to five months between defining a problem, and paying for a solution. Prevent that from costing your business thousands in sales representative salaries by automating as much of the process as possible.
Laird Superfood took this approach when managing wholesale orders. Although they accepted DTC orders through an online store, initially B2B orders could only be accepted via phone or email. As a result, phones in their office were ringing off the hook, and sales representatives were overwhelmed with the sheer amount of administrative work involved in converting customers.
“It was a really labor-intensive and time-consuming process,” says CEO Paul Hodge. “We needed to switch. We needed a robust platform that offers an automated wholesale portal customers can access anytime they like.”
Laird Superfood switched to Shopify to create a wholesale portal that streamlined and automated their B2B sales process. A password-protected online portal contained custom or negotiated pricing for certain business customers only. It meant B2B customers could make orders on their own accord—no sales rep included.
The pivot paid dividends. Paul says the wholesale portal saves the company as much as $50,000 to $60,000 each year, and tfB2B sales now account for 75% of the brand’s overall revenue, compared to just 25% pre-Shopify.
⚡️Tip: Replicate a similar strategy for your business with enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools. Shopify integrates with apps like NetSuite, Acumatica, and Brightpearl. Remove manual entry—and therefore, improve data accuracy—with native integrations that pull data in real time, so you can view your business’s most important metrics in one place.
The future of B2B sales: Trends for 2025 and beyond
B2B sales have undergone major transformation over the last few years—and that innovation isn’t set to slow down anytime soon. Here are three of the biggest B2B sales trends to influence your strategy.
Hyperpersonalization powered by AI
As younger buyers are conditioned to expect hyperpersonalized shopping experiences for purchases they make for themselves, the same habits are expanding into B2B.
As a result, artificial intelligence (AI) has become more than a content-creation assistant—it’s facilitating B2B sales on both the buyer and seller sides and allowing for more personalized experiences that make the buyer feel understood.
Per McKinsey, some 19% percent of B2B decision makers are already implementing GenAI buying and selling. Of those without an official rollout, almost a quarter are currently exploring development or experimentation. Their report concluded, “Whether decision makers are excited or concerned, those with the strongest feelings about gen AI have seen the most revenue growth in the past year.”
There are multiple use cases for generative AI in B2B sales—whether that’s research assistants to schedule demos, or dynamic product carousels to upsell products.
Perhaps the most influential is hyperpersonalization, which combines behavioral and contextual data to deliver highly tailored experiences to B2B buyers. Per the same McKinsey report, brands with a dual deployment of generative AI and personalization are 1.7 times more likely to increase market share than those not fully committed to either.
Predictive analytics from unified customer data
Every B2B sales professional strives for one insight: knowing the buyer’s next move. Identifying their stage in the sales funnel is one challenge, but stakeholders can linger in the same phase for months—perhaps even moving backwards if their needs are unmet or priorities change.
As the only platform to natively unify POS and ecommerce on the same operating system, Shopify acts as a centralized business “brain” to collate the most valuable asset any modern retailer has: first-party customer data. From omnichannel order history to interactions with sales reps, you can view it all within Shopify’s unified customer profiles for an always-updated 360-degree view of B2B buyers.
Predictive customer analytics relies on this data to anticipate a customer’s next move. It uses machine learning and AI to compare customer data—such as past interactions, purchase history, and preferences—against large data sets. This insight lets you:
- Identify friction points in the sales journey and resolve them before more customers encounter the same challenges.
- Pinpoint customers most at risk of churn, so you can reach out and encourage a repeat order before they leave.
- Improve B2B sales prospecting with lookalike audiences that model the characteristics of a typical buyer.
- Experiment with price adjustments by learning how price-sensitive buyers are before B2B sales are impacted.
Sustainability and ethical practices
Sustainability concerns have infiltrated every part of the buying process—not just for end consumers, but the businesses who serve them. As a result, B2B buyers are becoming increasingly conscious of their own supply chains and opting for vendors who can help them on that mission.
Research by Bain found that 36% of buyers would change suppliers today if their sustainability needs are unmet. And they’re willing to pay more for those that fit their criteria: almost half are willing to pay a premium of 5% or more to shop with sustainable vendors.
Practical ways to integrate sustainability into your B2B sales process include:
- Presenting energy and cost savings of buying your product vs. a competitor’s
- Showcasing eco-friendly product features, such as energy efficiency ratings
- Highlighting the ethical standards in your supply chain, be that using recycled materials or reducing waste
- Shipping parcels in bulk to avoid excess carbon emissions from delivering orders
- Promoting sustainability certifications or credentials, such as ISO 14001
How Shopify can help scale B2B sales
B2B sales isn’t easy. The buying journey for business customers is lengthier. The sales techniques your team is using to convert B2C customers won’t fly when businesses demand high ROI on the products they buy online.
Use Shopify’s B2B ecommerce platform to operate DTC and B2B storefronts from one ecommerce back end. Access features like:
- Customized payment terms and B2B checkout
- Company profiles with varied permission levels to encourage repeat B2B sales
- Discounted wholesale price lists to entice new customers to purchase
- Customer relationship management (CRM) system and ERP software integrations
- Automatic payment reminders for B2B customers on net terms, without setting a mental reminder to follow up
Read more
- B2B Ecommerce: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started
- B2B Ecommerce: Why Taking Your B2B Business Online is a Smart Strategy to Scale
- 12 B2B Ecommerce Trends To Shape Your Business in 2023
- What Is Wholesale B2B and How To Sell To Customers in 2023
- What Are B2B Payments? Methods & Processing Systems
- B2B Marketplaces: What They Are, How to Succeed, and 8 Marketplaces to Consider
- Find the perfect domain name
B2B sales FAQ
What does B2B sales mean?
B2B sales refers to transactions where one business sells products or services to another business, rather than to individual consumers. These sales often involve higher-value deals, longer sales cycles, and more decision-makers compared to B2C sales.
What is a B2B sales example?
A business that sells office furniture to another business is an example of B2B sales. Wholesalers might also sell inventory in bulk to other retailers, who resell the products to end consumers in their own stores.
Is B2B sales difficult?
B2B sales is considered challenging because the sales cycle is much longer than a B2C transaction. Deals are also of a higher value and involve more stakeholders, which require B2B sales reps to build relationships and ease buyers’ concerns.
What do B2B salespeople do?
B2B salespeople identify leads, build relationships, and present solutions that meet the buyer’s needs. They manage the end-to-end sales process, from prospecting and pitching to negotiating contracts and closing deals, often working with multiple stakeholders within each account.
