"Our customers don't buy online." – The most costly mistake in B2B sales
The sentence comes up in almost every first meeting. A managing director leans back, folds their arms and says: "We understand all of that. But our customers are different. They want to order through the sales team. They phone, they send an email. They do not buy online."
It is the most costly mistake in B2B sales. Not because the statement is made in bad faith – but because it rests on a confusion: habit is mistaken for preference. Your customers order through the sales team because that has been the only option so far. Not because it is their preferred option. And the data on this is unambiguous.
What the research actually shows
Gartner surveyed 646 B2B buyers in 2025. The result: 67 % prefer a buying experience without personal contact with a sales representative. Not "could imagine" – but "actively prefer". 73 % say they deliberately avoid suppliers who send them irrelevant sales messages.
In its B2B analysis, McKinsey describes a "rule of thirds": at every point of the buying journey, one third of buyers prefer personal contact, one third prefer remote contact (phone, video) and one third prefer digital self-service. This distribution holds across industries, regardless of company size and even regardless of order volume.
Forrester goes a step further: according to its forecast for 2025, more than half of all large B2B transactions – including those above one million US dollars – will be handled through digital self-service channels. Not through field sales. Through the supplier's website or a marketplace.
The generation that is buying today
LinkedIn has found that 73 % of all B2B buyers are millennials. 44 % even make the final purchasing decision. This generation grew up with Amazon, digital comparison portals and self-service tools. At work they expect the same buying experience they have in private.
When the new head of purchasing starts at one of your long-standing customers and looks for your B2B online shop to get an overview of your range – what do they find?
Why your sales team sees it differently
If the data is that clear, why do so many companies still believe their customers do not want to buy online? Because three distortions are at work at the same time.
Distortion 1: sales only hears from the people who call.
Customers who would order online do not call to say so. They either do not order at all (and quietly move to the competitor who does have a shop) or they go along with the existing process. Your sales team speaks exclusively with the customers who use the existing channel – and concludes that all customers prefer that channel. That is a classic survivorship bias.
Distortion 2: habit is read as preference.
If a customer has been ordering by fax for 15 years, that does not mean they love the fax. It means they had no better alternative. As soon as a competitor offers a working shop with individual prices and real-time stock levels, "loyalty" to the fax turns into a move to the online shop – just at the other supplier.
Distortion 3: poor shop experiences are read as evidence against e-commerce.
The 2025 B2B buyer study by Sana Commerce shows: 89 % of German B2B buyers are frustrated with their online buying experience. 90 % say that certain factors stop them from ordering as much online as they would actually like to.
The three biggest irritations: faulty product information, inadequate search functions and inaccurate stock data. The problem is not that customers do not want to buy online – the problem is that most B2B online shops are poor.
The real objection behind the objection
When a managing director says "our customers do not buy online", they usually mean something else. Usually one of three things:
"Our sales team is afraid of becoming redundant"
This is the most common reason – and at the same time the least justified. A good B2B online shop does not replace the sales team, it frees it up. Once repeat orders, standard orders and stock enquiries run through the shop, sales has time for what actually makes money: strategic advice, cross-selling, winning new customers.
Gartner describes exactly this model: buyers prefer self-service for routine tasks and gathering information – but for advice in context, meaning the question "does this product fit my specific situation?", they actively seek contact with a sales representative.
"Our pricing is too complex for a shop"
Customer-specific prices, volume discounts, framework agreements, condition systems with bonus logic – yes, B2B pricing is complex. But that is exactly what modern shop systems such as Shopware with B2B Components are built for.
The buyer logs in and sees their prices. Not the list price, not an estimate – their negotiated price. In real time, synchronised from the ERP. That is not a future scenario, it is standard in every well-implemented B2B shop.
"We know our customers personally – that is our advantage"
Personal relationships are valuable. But they do not scale. When your best sales representative leaves the company, the relationships leave with them. When a customer wants to reorder at 10 p.m., nobody is there. When the buyer at your customer changes, the new person has to learn the entire process from scratch.
A shop, by contrast, is always there, knows every set of terms and makes getting started trivial for new contacts. A personal relationship and digital self-service are not a contradiction – they work in tandem.
The uncomfortable truth: 80 % of the buying journey happens without you
This may be the single most important figure: according to Gartner, around 80 % of the B2B buying journey now takes place without direct contact with the supplier. The buyer researches online, compares suppliers, reads specialist articles, asks colleagues, draws up shortlists – and only contacts sales once the decision has all but been made in their head.
If you do not have a shop, you are invisible during those 80 % of the buying journey. Not to your existing customers – they already know you. But to potential new customers who are actively looking for a supplier right now. And to the colleague of your existing customer's buyer, who is awarding the contract for a new project and comparing three suppliers to do it.
The TrustRadius study on B2B buying behaviour confirms this: 87 % of B2B buyers prefer to do their own research before speaking to a sales representative. 89 % of buyers do not only consume content they found themselves – 72 % actively share that content with colleagues on the buying committee.
Anyone who is not digitally present during the research phase – with product information, price transparency, availability and relevant specialist content – does not make it onto the shortlist in the first place. However good the sales team may be.
Seven levers for getting your customers into the shop
So the question is not whether, but how. From our project experience and the findings of the current studies, seven levers emerge that make the difference.
1. Solve a real problem – do not run a technology demo
The most common mistake: a company builds a shop, switches it on and waits. Customers do not turn up of their own accord just because the URL exists. The shop has to solve a concrete problem your customers have today.
The three strongest entry points according to the Sana Commerce B2B buyer study 2025:
Reliability: error-free orders without misunderstandings
Efficiency: no waiting for callbacks or quote confirmations
Speed: real-time information on availability and delivery time
If your shop delivers these three things, it solves a problem that the telephone and email cannot solve.
2. Show individual prices after login – not list prices
The biggest conversion killer in a B2B shop: the buyer sees a list price that has nothing to do with their negotiated price. The shop is then useless to them – they still have to call the sales representative. The result: the shop is written off as "not fit for real use", and the myth lives on.
The solution: customer-specific prices after login, synchronised from the ERP. Only when the buyer sees their real price does the shop become a serious ordering channel.
3. Make sales an ally, not a loser
Ravensburger – a company that has given its dealers an online portal – went through exactly this challenge: neither sales nor the dealers were enthusiastic at first. What worked: cross-channel commission for the field sales team. Once the sales representative also earns commission on their customers' online orders, the shop turns from an enemy into an ally.
On top of that: have your sales representatives place orders in the shop themselves. Not in the ERP, not through a shortcut – in the shop. That way they understand the customer experience first-hand and can walk customers through it.
4. Start with the order type that needs the least advice
Not every order is suitable as an entry point into the online channel. The best starting point is repeat orders: known products, known quantities, a regular rhythm. Here the value of the shop is immediately noticeable – order history, quick order and order-list upload make reordering faster than any phone call.
Complex first orders, special configurations and project enquiries stay with sales for the time being – or are mapped as a hybrid process in which the customer starts in the shop and sales steps in where needed.
5. Create incentives – not obligations
Forcing customers into the shop by decree does not work. What does work: positive incentives.
Exclusive online benefits:
Products or terms that are only available in the shop
Early access to new items
Promotional prices that apply online only
Free express delivery above a certain online order value
Transparency benefits:
Invoices and delivery notes available for immediate download
Real-time delivery status without having to ask
A complete order history for internal analysis
These are not gimmicks – they are genuine process advantages that the telephone channel cannot offer.
6. Promote the shop actively – not once, but continuously
One launch mailing is not enough. Raising adoption is an ongoing task, not the end of a project. Successful B2B companies promote the shop across every channel: in conversation, on invoices, in email signatures, at trade fairs, on LinkedIn, in catalogues.
The message is not "we now have a shop" – the message is "in the shop you can do X, which was not possible before."
In concrete terms: when a customer calls to request an invoice, the office team replies: "I will gladly send it to you – and in the customer portal you can download every invoice from the last 24 months yourself, at any time. Shall I quickly show you where?" That is not coercion, that is service.
7. Measure what happens – and act on the data
Which customers order online and which do not? Which product categories are searched for in the shop but never ordered? Where do customers abandon the checkout? Which items are missing?
This data is gold – and it only exists if you have a shop. If 30 % of your customers use the shop and the remaining 70 % do not, the question is not "do they not want to?" – it is "what is missing from the shop that would make them want to?" The answer is in the data.
What happens if you do nothing
The myth that "our customers do not buy online" has a reassuring side effect: it justifies standing still. If customers do not want it, nothing has to change. The sales structure stays, the processes stay, the ERP stays.
But the world outside changes anyway. The figures from the B2B Market Monitor 2025 show that B2B internet trade in Germany stands at 509 billion euros – and is still growing. At the same time, around 20 % of small manufacturers and wholesalers have disappeared from the market since 2012.
And the generation now taking over purchasing departments has no patience for ordering processes built on fax and callbacks. To them, a supplier without a working online shop is not a "charmingly traditional company" – it is a risk.
It is not shop or sales. It is both.
The question was never "should we replace sales with a shop?" The question is: "how do we give our customers the channel they need at this particular moment?"
Sometimes that is the personal adviser. Sometimes it is the shop at 10 p.m. Sometimes it is both – the sales representative who puts a configuration together in the shop with the customer.
McKinsey's rule of thirds does not mean you will lose a third of your customers if you have no shop. It means that a third of your customers – and a third of your potential new customers – already prefer a digital channel. And that this third grows every year, because the generation that "has always ordered through the sales rep" is retiring.
Your sales team will not become redundant. But its job is changing: away from taking orders, towards strategic advice. Away from "I will send you a quote tomorrow" towards "let us look together in your customer portal at which solution fits." That is not a loss – that is an upgrade.
FAQ – frequently asked questions
Do B2B customers really want to order online?
Yes. According to Gartner, 67 % of B2B buyers prefer a buying experience without personal contact with a sales representative. McKinsey shows that one third of all B2B buyers prefer digital self-service at every point of the buying journey – regardless of industry or order size.
Does a B2B online shop replace the sales team?
No. A well-implemented B2B shop takes routine work such as repeat orders and stock enquiries off the sales team. That leaves more time for strategic advice, cross-selling and winning new customers – the tasks that genuinely generate revenue.
Do customer-specific prices work in a B2B online shop?
Yes. Modern shop systems such as Shopware with B2B Components synchronise customer-specific prices from the ERP in real time. After logging in, the buyer sees their negotiated price – not the list price. That is standard in professional B2B shops today.
How do I get my customers to use the shop?
Start with repeat orders, show individual prices after login, create exclusive online benefits (immediate invoice downloads, for example) and make sales an ally through cross-channel commission. Communicate the value continuously, not just at launch.
What does a professional B2B online shop cost?
Costs vary with the requirements. At Commerce Partner, B2B shops start with an MVP setup from €20,000 plus €10,000/month on a 24-month term. That is considerably cheaper than building an in-house e-commerce department, which costs more than €500,000 a year.
