What are the characteristics of B2B business?

[ishanijerin1]

What are the characteristics of sales in BtoB business? The differences become clear when we look at the differences with BtoC business that deals with general consumers.

It takes a long time to process payment
In BtoC, the consumer is the individual who makes the payment, so to put it bluntly, the product can be sold in an instant. Even if you are cautious, you probably think about it for 2-3 weeks or a month before making a purchase. I often hear stories of people who decide, "If I'm still interested in buying after 2 weeks, I'll buy it!"

On the other hand, in B2B, purchases are not decided in such a short time. Because the buyer is a company, there is a budget and an order timing, and it usually takes several months of discussion and consideration to solidify the purchase decision within the company.

There are many parties involved in the settlement process
This is similar to the issue of time, but in B2C, payment nurse database is made by one person, but in B2B, it is common for many people to be involved in the process of payment. Payment is made with the agreement of many people, including the initiator, verifier, approver, settler, etc.

Few effective customer touchpoints (channels)
In BtoC, the purchase target is general consumers, so it is effective to conduct sales and marketing broadly. In BtoB, the purchase target is companies, and the target is limited by the industry and business type. Therefore, it is inefficient to conduct sales and marketing activities broadly like in BtoC, and there are generally few effective customer contact points that can be used for sales and marketing.

Another characteristic is that while BtoC includes purchases for personal hobbies, interests, and experiences (travel, events, theme parks, etc.), BtoB includes purchases of things necessary for business as well as purchases aimed at solving business problems.

Due to these characteristics, salespeople engaged in B2B business have to spend a long time and a lot of effort from negotiation to receiving an order. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has placed significant restrictions on real-life activities (face-to-face sales, seminars, exhibitions), forcing most of these activities to shift to remote and online activities.