Consumerization of B2B (The Myth)
The widely-repeated but fundamentally flawed assumption that B2B buyers want — and respond to — the same experience as B2C consumers, simply because they use B2C platforms personally. Used to justify applying Amazon-style self-service models to B2B commerce. Justin King argues this analogy misses the structural differences that make B2B irreducibly complex.
The Myth in Brief
The narrative runs: “B2B buyers are also consumers. They use Amazon, Netflix, and Uber in their personal lives. Therefore, they want the same frictionless, self-service, instant-gratification experience in their B2B purchasing.”
This reasoning was used throughout the 2010s to justify:
- Minimizing sales teams in favor of self-service portals
- Reducing human touchpoints as “friction”
- Predicting the displacement of B2B salespeople by eCommerce
- The famous Forrester 2015 prediction: 1 million B2B sales jobs would be displaced by 2020
Why the Myth Is Wrong
B2B buying is structurally different from B2C in ways that digital self-service alone cannot resolve:
B2C
B2B
Single decision-maker (usually)
Multi-stakeholder buying committees
Personal funds, personal risk
Organizational funds, career risk
Standard catalogue pricing
Negotiated contracts, custom pricing, contract pricing hierarchies
Returns are easy
Supply chain dependencies, plant shutdowns at stake
No relationship history
Decades of supplier relationships
Emotional, impulse-possible
Rational, approval-required
Risk is personal and manageable
Risk is organizational and career-defining
When the buying environment complexity is high — multiple stakeholders, budget cycles, internal politics, implementation risk — no amount of good UX replaces the need for a human who understands the organization’s specific situation.
What Was Actually Right
The myth wasn’t entirely wrong. Several B2C principles do apply:
- Buyers prefer digital for simple, known, repeat transactions (see b2b-buyer-quadrants, Q1)
- Good UX, fast search, and easy ordering matter for commodity purchasing
- Self-service reduces cost-per-interaction for low-complexity needs
The error was generalization: assuming that because digital works for Q1 buying situations, it would work for Q4.
The Correction
Justin King’s argument: instead of “B2B buyers want a B2C experience,” the accurate statement is:
“B2B buyers want digital in the flow and human at the moment — self-service for routine, predictable tasks and genuine human expertise for decisions that carry real risk.”
This is the tiered-engagement-model in practice.
Implications
- Stop designing B2B platforms as Amazon analogues
- Design for the type of decision, not for general convenience
- Invest in digital tools for Q1/Q2 buying situations
- Protect and deepen human relationships for Q3/Q4 buying situations
- Recognize that the data (75% of buyers prefer online for known purchases; 93% prefer digital when they’ve already decided) proves the myth partially — but the reverse is equally true for complex, novel, or high-risk decisions