B2B versus B2C

What's the difference?

[blaze]

We currently sell products to consumers and we are now thinking about moving into the B2B space with a product offering aimed at companies instead of consumers.

I was wondering if anyone else had tried this and what sort of things they can think of that you need to do differently when selling to businesses versus selling to consumers?

[wingslevel]

we sell both b2b and b2c and find them quite different.

the b2b customers usually know what they want and their order sizes are much larger. they also know what things should cost, so your margins are slimmer. we can be firmer on terms (such as a restocking fee for returns) with b2b customers. we tend to see less fraud and flaky customers on the b2b side. b2b customers tend to reorder and stay pretty loyal to us.

b2c customers want much more service. they'll email you with all kinds of crazy questions about your products and they won't bat an eye before sending back something that doesn't look like the picture. they will usually pay our price, though, and we've learned to make the b2c side of our businesses profitable.

[martyt]

b2b customers are also likely to want to issue purchase orders, receive invoices with their order and have their accounting department handle the payment by check at that point. With some big companies, that's the only way they'll do business with you; smaller ones usually use either a purchasing card or personal credit card.

[sun818]

I like B2B - bigger orders, less hassle.

Accepting COD is common practice. For USA domestic, all of the major shippers offer COD. For UPS, I believe the charge is additional $7.50.

Your credit card processing fees, if using a merchant account, will be higher if they use a company visa/mastercard, or american express. The charges typically fall under mid-qualified or non-qualified which is 1.0% or more on top of your usual fees.