Business Customers and Consumers - Explained
How are Business Customers different from Consumers?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 17th, 2024
- Marketing, Advertising, Sales & PR
- Accounting, Taxation, and Reporting
- Professionalism & Career Development
-
Law, Transactions, & Risk Management
Government, Legal System, Administrative Law, & Constitutional Law Legal Disputes - Civil & Criminal Law Agency Law HR, Employment, Labor, & Discrimination Business Entities, Corporate Governance & Ownership Business Transactions, Antitrust, & Securities Law Real Estate, Personal, & Intellectual Property Commercial Law: Contract, Payments, Security Interests, & Bankruptcy Consumer Protection Insurance & Risk Management Immigration Law Environmental Protection Law Inheritance, Estates, and Trusts
- Business Management & Operations
- Economics, Finance, & Analytics
- Courses
How are Business Customers different from Consumers?
Business customers or business to business (B2B) customers are more focused on the bottom line. In other words, they are concerned with how our product or the price they pay for it affects their purchase. Ultimate profitability of the investment is going to be much more of a concern for them than for a consumer.
The consumer is mostly going to be concerned with using the product. If it delivers a good experience, it may be less concerned with how much it costs or financial benefit that it returns.
Another difference is that businesses are their demand or their interest in buying a product is actually driven by their customer needs. So, it may not be a question of what they prefer themselves as much as what will their customers buy or what do their customers want. That changes how they make decisions as well.
Another difference between businesses and consumers is that there are fewer businesses out there than there are individual consumers. This affects the way that we interact with our customer. For instance, it makes relationships more important.
The flip side it that businesses are likely to spend more money on a purchase. In other words, they tend to be less cost sensitive and more likely to buy more product than individual consumers.
Another key difference in business customers versus consumers is that the purchase decision by a business is going to involve many more people or perspectives. So, this will change how we interact with the customer in order to encourage or facilitate that purchase.
All of these things make up the the different reasons or the the many reasons that business customers are different from consumers. As a marketer, particularly in a business to business organization, we need to understand this in order to be more successful.
Related Topics
- Business to Business (B2B) Definition
- Business to Consumer (B2C) Definition
- Business to Government (B2G) Definition
- Business Customers are Different from Consumers
- What Drives Purchase Decisions?
- Types of Purchase Decisions
- Who Makes Purchase Decisions?
- Role of the Business Buying Center
- Identifying Options for Purchase
- Benefits/Detriments of B2B Relationships
- What is Included in a Business Relationship?
- What are Kickbacks a Bad Thing?