Beyond One-Click: Understanding What "User Friendly" Truly Means in B2B Ecommerce

Discover what "user-friendly" really means in B2B ecommerce. Learn how to balance simplicity with necessary complexity to meet modern B2B buyer expectations.

Today’s B2B buyer is more digitally native than ever—and they expect all buying experiences to be extremely simple and incredibly online.

This is far from speculation. As Millennials and Gen Z buyers continue their ascension into lead procurement roles, they're bringing their consumer-grade expectations to business purchasing. These digital natives don't distinguish between personal and professional online experiences. They expect both to be seamless, intuitive, and fast.

However, B2B commerce isn't just DTC with bigger numbers. While buyers are demanding more user-friendly platforms and purchasing experiences, the complexity of a typical B2B sales cycle is real, necessary, and can't simply be wished away.

Why B2B complexity can't be engineered away

There are several nuances that make it impossible for brands to merely replicate their DTC experiences for B2B buyers and sellers. I’ll give you a quick summary to lay the groundwork for why the term “user-friendly” has such a different definition in B2B commerce:

1. Multiple decision-makers: Unlike consumer purchases, B2B buying often involves approval chains and committee decisions. A truly user-friendly B2B experience must accommodate these workflows without adding friction.
2. Corporate purchasing systems: B2B buyers operate within established systems that require features like purchase order processing—something rarely needed in B2C.
3. Necessity-driven purchases: B2B buying is driven by role, function, fit, and safety—not emotional impulses. This fundamentally changes the purchase journey and what "convenience" means in this context.
4. System integration requirements: Your beautiful frontend means nothing if it can't talk to the ERP, which has its own logic and workflows that must be respected.

The challenge isn't eliminating complexity—it's absorbing it so your customers don't have to deal with it. Based on the conversations I have in my role as a solutions engineer at Shopify, it’s clear there’s still plenty of opportunity for vendors to make life easier for their buyers.

The new baseline for B2B user experience

I’ve supported large B2B brands for over a decade. In that time, one thing has become abundantly clear to me: the best B2B experiences don’t replace the human element of the sales process, but rather enhance it by removing friction from routine transactions and reserving human interaction for where it adds genuine value. 

There are a lot of reasons for this, but the primary one to me is the absurdity of the traditional B2B ordering process. Here’s what it looks like in too many cases:

• On a good day, a salesperson sends a paper order form to a customer looking to purchase or re-order a very specific list of SKUs. 
• On a slightly worse day, that salesperson has to answer the phone and take down dictation from the customer, which leaves a huge margin for human error. 

In either case, once the salesperson has (hopefully) taken down all the order details, they’re left at the mercy of a neverending stream of approvers on the buyer’s end who need to review the order and beat them up about pricing before approving the purchase. The B2B landscape at large was essentially numb to this reality for decades, but the tide is turning quickly. 

Sandy Shen, a VP Analyst at Gartner, writes that B2B buyers and sellers alike want to do more business through self-service channels because it’s more convenient for buyers and more cost-effective for sellers. My colleague Brandon Gracey added to this sentiment, somewhat in jest, by writing that B2B commerce should be as straightforward as sending a text message. No matter how you phrase it, it’s no secret to anyone in B2B that the artificial boundary between professional and personal buying experiences is collapsing faster than most businesses realize.

It’s important to acknowledge that digital transformations are hard and shouldn’t happen overnight. But as the B2B landscape continues to shift, there are two things I suggest to vendors as a starting point for improving the user experience for buyers and sellers:

• B2B buyers should have immediate access to basic account information
• Vendors should create better systems to serve the “long tail” buyer

B2B buyers should have immediate access to basic account information

At a minimum, B2B buyers shouldn't have to ask another human being for access to basic account information. Today, modern buyer portals are relationship hubs where customers download invoices, request quotes, and maintain ongoing connections with their dedicated representatives. 

Some of the world’s most beloved brands have completely reimagined their B2B operations through building these types of relationship hubs on Shopify. Nicolas Lukac, Director of Emerging Channels at Brooklinen, says that its previous B2B operations were order-forward, rather than customer-forward. With B2B on Shopify, Brooklinen’s B2B customers now have access to specific prices, products, and payment methods, giving them a more personalized experience through which they can place orders themselves.

"On Shopify, our team has the liberty and the space to build relationships with customers, instead of just transacting with them. We spend more time understanding our customers and less on manual inputs. This allows us to provide exceptional experiences for our DTC, B2B customers and retail customers alike."

Nicolas Lukac, Director of Emerging Channels, Brooklinen

Vendors should create better systems to serve the “long tail” buyer

The most overlooked segment in B2B ecommerce isn't the enterprise buyer with massive orders—it's the "long tail" customer making smaller, less frequent purchases. These buyers represent significant collective revenue and expect a premium experience, but are often neglected because they don't justify dedicated sales attention. 

What these buyers need isn't complicated, but it's rarely delivered well. They require systems that remember who they are and what they usually buy. They need to reorder in seconds, not minutes. They expect their negotiated pricing to appear automatically. They want transparency around volume discounts without having to ask. Perhaps most importantly, they need clear visibility into their credit limits and payment terms without picking up the phone. When vendors personalize products at the right price when buyers need them, those customers will reward you with their loyalty.

Not too long ago, Dermalogica ran their B2B operations on a custom platform that was plagued by constant downtime and ultimately couldn’t handle the complexities of their business. After switching to Shopify, Dermalogica saw an instant jump in the frequency of repeat orders, which improved by 3x from 46.9 days to 10.7 days. 

"Customers used to be so frustrated by our platform that they'd rather call us on the phone to place orders. Now we're seeing customers be so comfortable with the experience that they're placing orders for thousands of dollars worth of product from their mobile phones."

Nicholas Lachhman, Associate Ecommerce Manager, Dermalogica Canada

The path forward: invisible complexity, visible simplicity

The modern B2B landscape demands an online experience that balances simplicity with necessary complexity. The winners in this space won't be those wh››o create the flashiest interfaces, but those who build systems that handle complexity behind the scenes while presenting simplicity to the user.

The future of B2B commerce isn't just digital—it's invisibly complex and deceptively simple. The gap between consumer and business purchasing experiences will continue to narrow. Smart B2B companies aren't asking if they should adapt—they're figuring out how quickly they can do it before their competitors do.

Want to continue the conversation about how B2B commerce can be more user friendly on Shopify? Schedule a call.