It’s difficult to quantify the value of a B2B brand when you’re in the weeds, reaching out to prospective clients with the potential to spend upwards of $500,000 with your business.
Most “top B2B brand” lists spotlight enterprise giants—but the real opportunity lies in taking a look at how modern B2B brands create memorable, consumer-grade experiences that build trust and drive growth.
The truth is that selling to other businesses offers some similarities to direct-to-consumer (DTC), but business buyers require information that makes the B2B customer journey uniquely complex. There are more stakeholders involved, each of whom has different requirements and expectations from the B2B brands they engage with.
This guide explores how those expectations are reshaping the buyer journey, and how B2B brands that create memorable experiences stand out, build loyalty, and operate more efficiently as they scale.
What makes a B2B brand successful in 2026?
The legacy approach to selling B2B online is no longer effective as buyers’ preferences change and technology evolves.
Today’s buyers bring their consumer habits into B2B decisions, expecting the same transparency, personalization, and ease they get when shopping DTC. As a result, leading B2B brands are differentiating themselves by shifting focus from products to experiences that build trust across every touchpoint.
Core elements of a winning B2B brand include:
- Consistent digital experience across all touchpoints: Gen Z and millennials dominate B2B buying decisions, and they’re becoming accustomed to the omnichannel experiences they get when buying DTC. Winning B2B brands cater to these expectations with consistent experiences, regardless of where the buyer interacts with them.
- Self-service capabilities that empower buyers: Rep support is no longer the only way to make business purchases. Today, buyers spend roughly one-third of their time in the buying process utilizing self-serve options. They’re willing to spend upwards of $500,000 in these transactions.
- Transparent B2B pricing and product information: Net terms, custom quotes, and multi-year agreements mean B2B prices are much more complex than DTC. You need to make these transparent if you’re to stand any chance at winning contracts: the number one change B2B tech buyers want is pricing transparency from vendors.
- Mobile-optimized B2B experiences: Buyers’ willingness to buy through their smartphones is rising—as is the urgency to deploy a responsive site that offers world-class mobile experiences. Everlast, for instance, migrated to Shopify’s mobile-friendly platform and increased conversion rates, sales, and organic traffic as a result.
“Teaming up with Shopify, we delivered the one-two Everlast needed: a fast migration to a mobile-first Shopify Plus theme and a real-time Microsoft D365 integration,” says Brooke Sanderson, merchant success director at Arctic Grey, the Shopify Partner who coordinated Everlast’s migration.
“Add SearchSpring for AI search and Nosto for personalization, and checkout friction dropped. Day one landed clean—faster speed, stronger security, higher ranking SEO.”
Examples of B2B brands leading the digital transformation
Modern B2B brands—regardless of industry—are succeeding by making their digital experience feel as intuitive and trustworthy as a consumer storefront. The common thread in the following examples is clear: Each brand uses digital touchpoints beyond transactions. Each delivers a memorable, experience-first buying journey that builds confidence and long-term loyalty.
Snyder Performance Engineering
Snyder Performance Engineering builds high-performance automotive parts, but their manual phone- and email-based ordering slowed growth and made it hard to serve repair shops efficiently.
Snyder launched a self-serve wholesale portal and integrated real-time inventory and fulfillment tools after migrating to Shopify B2B. They cut back-office work by 25% and gave customers a faster, more intuitive buying experience.
“Anybody on my team can go in and use the Shopify admin without second-guessing themselves,” says cofounder Amy Snyder. “My B2B customers are enjoying placing orders on Shopify—it’s super easy to navigate and track what they’ve ordered.”
Healthcare buyers face similar expectations—and friction—when digital experiences are slow or unclear.
Allied Medical
Allied Medical provides world-class assistive technology to buyers through their B2B storefront. However, their legacy site made it hard for healthcare providers to find products, view order history, or reorder efficiently.
After migrating to Shopify Plus with the help of enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration experts CyberWorkshop, the brand launched a modern B2B portal with improved search, company profiles, invoice history, and streamlined reordering.
“B2B on Shopify has allowed us to introduce features that greatly improved the experience of our wholesale customers,” says managing director Katie Noble. With faster navigation, clearer pricing visibility, and fewer manual workarounds, Allied Medical now delivers a smoother, more confident buying journey for busy clinical teams.
Kulani Kinis
Kulani Kinis expanded their wholesale business using the B2B features built-in to Shopify Plus, creating a dedicated storefront designed to feel as polished and intuitive as their DTC site.
Smaller retailers can self-serve from a catalog of more than 800 products, using tools like size-availability sliders and bulk add-to-cart to build orders quickly.
“With Shopify Plus, we’ve been able to make the wholesale store feel like us,” says cofounder Alex Babich. “Shopify’s B2B capabilities have given us the cohesive brand experience we wanted and customization options that meet the needs of our wholesale partners. We’re not bound by others’ constraints.”
The result: recurring wholesale orders, new global buyers, and a B2B customer base that has grown 300%.
The same expectations show up in beauty and retail, where buyers want reliable search and clear pricing to move quickly through large catalogs.
AMR Hair & Beauty
AMR Hair & Beauty moved to Shopify Plus after years of site crashes, slow load times, and poor search that frustrated both retail and B2B buyers. They have a product catalog spanning over 6,000 SKUs, but their legacy infrastructure made the search and filtering process difficult for B2B buyers to navigate the site.
AMR Hair & Beauty switched to Shopify to fix these issues, upgrading to advanced search and filtering so wholesalers can quickly find items. Buyers could now narrow down their results and view B2B pricing and incentives behind a password protected B2B customer portal.
“A fast website and advanced search capabilities create momentum,” says founder Ammar Issa. Since switching, AMR has tripled sales and increased B2B average order value (AOV) by 77%.
How to build a strong B2B brand identity
To stand out among the sheer volume of B2B brands, you’ll need a strong identity. Today, that identity is defined less by product features and more by the quality of the experience you deliver across every touchpoint. Here’s how you build a brand that reflects modern B2B buyer expectations.
Define your unique value proposition for business buyers
Value propositions tell buyers why they should buy your B2B products over a competitor’s. This is critical in today’s ecommerce market when advancements in technology lower the barrier to entry for product development.
Start with a thorough understanding of your target persona's pain points. Review feedback surveys, conversations with sales reps, and B2B customer service tickets to uncover the main problem your buyer is facing, and reverse-engineer content across each touchpoint to address them.
Note: Gartner estimates that the typical B2B buying process involves up to 10 stakeholders, each with their own priorities. Understanding these differences helps you tailor the experience—not just the message—to every decision-maker involved.
Shift from product-first to experience-first branding
Traditional B2B purchases were product-driven. Buyers cared more about a product’s features, specifications, and price—these factors were how B2B companies differentiated themselves from other vendors.
Today, business buyers bring their consumer expectations with them. They judge brands by how intuitive it feels to evaluate, compare, and purchase their product—not only by what the product does.
Now, experiences reign supreme. Three-quarters of business buyers expect the same experiences they get when shopping for personal purchases when buying B2B. Experiences are just as valuable—if not more so—than the products themselves, especially when product-related specifications are comparable.
This has culminated in a shift from product-first to experience-first branding. Trade furniture brand Industry West, for instance, uses Shopify to manage a variable product catalog that’s personalized to every buyer.
“Architects, designers, internal procurement people for Google, or someone decorating their house in the Hamptons are all generally going through the same buying process: they're all on Instagram or Pinterest,” says chief marketing officer Ian Leslie. “They're all Googling the same things. So I just need to show the pieces in a beautiful manner. If they like it, the difference is in whether they will buy one or 100.”
Design a cohesive brand experience across channels
A modern B2B ecommerce experience doesn’t just take place on your branded website. One similarity between business buying and DTC is the need to offer seamless omnichannel experiences as customers switch between channels.
Research estimates the average B2B buyer consults a dozen different channels when making a purchase decision. Align sales and marketing across each of these touchpoints, so buyers have consistency from first touch to reorder. That means:
- Using unified commerce platforms to unify product, order, and customer data
- Creating style guides for every team member to reference in customer-facing materials
- Standardizing buyer outreach with templates and scripts
Tip: Giving buyers consistent information across ecommerce and POS channels reduces friction and builds trust. Shopify is the only platform that supports this natively on a single infrastructure.
Deploy self-service portals as brand differentiators
As buyer comfort with self-serve grows, leading B2B brands use their portals as a core part of the brand experience—not just a transactional tool. A well-designed portal empowers buyers, which in turn builds trust and long-term brand loyalty.
A self-serve B2B customer portal should include:
- Company accounts with customizable permissions for stakeholders
- 24/7 access to ordering and account management
- Personalized catalogs and pricing transparency
- Configure, price, quote (CPL) functionality
- Mobile optimization for on-the-go business buyers
- Easy repeat ordering with stored credit cards and order history
Laird Superfood is just one enterprise B2B brand relying on Shopify to power these digital experiences. By shifting routine orders to a self-serve portal, the team gives buyers more control and faster access to negotiated price lists—reducing friction.
Since migrating, sales have grown 15% month over month. The wholesale channel now outpaces consumer sales. And the cost savings from greater operational efficiencies are the cherry on top.
“It’s fair to say that having the wholesale portal will save us the equivalent of one employee a year,” says CEO Paul Hodge. “That’s $50,000 to $60,000 a year, and covers the cost of Shopify Plus several times over.
Content marketing that builds B2B brand authority
Buyers have more financial skin in the game when they’re buying products on behalf of a business. Pressure from stakeholders to drive the return on their investment (ROI) influences their decisions. Content that educates and supports buyers early builds trust and positions your brand as a partner—not just a supplier—long before they’re ready to purchase.
Take skincare B2B brand Dermalogica Canada, for example. They sell products to wholesalers who resell items in their own clinics. These retail partners gain access to the brand’s online course and Living Skin podcast—both of which are educational resources that share industry insights and solve a pain point of their customers: reselling products. This kind of ongoing education strengthens loyalty by showing the brand understands and supports the day-to-day needs of their professional buyers.
The landing page for Dermalogica’s wholesale channel also features customer success stories and social proof. These things mesh together to position the B2B brand’s expertise as a leader in the wholesale cosmetics industry. It reinforces credibility and gives new buyers confidence that they’re choosing a trusted, proven partner.
Measuring B2B brand success
Many enterprise B2B brands deprioritize the brand experience in favor of short-term initiatives like product development and sales targets. That’s not to say the latter aren’t important—brand experiences should be equal on the priority list. The ROI of a seamless B2B brand experience pays dividends in the long run.
Customer acquisition costs (CAC) are much higher in B2B as each customer has a greater lifetime value. Buyers are inclined to make larger purchases and repeat orders if their vendor is reliable and trustworthy—both of which can be influenced by your B2B experience.
The challenge? It’s difficult to measure the value of a B2B brand. There’s no singular metric you can use. A combination of financial and customer-based metrics help measure whether your branding initiatives are paying off.
And because modern B2B brands differentiate through experience, the right metrics should reflect how well your digital touchpoints drive confidence and long-term loyalty.
Key metrics for B2B brand performance include:
- Customer lifetime value (CLV) and retention rates: High CLV and strong retention rates show customers are coming back to place repeat orders, renew contracts, and remain loyal. It signals your B2B brand is seen as trustworthy and reliable.
- Net Promoter Score: NPS measures how strongly customers associate your B2B brand with positive experiences. A high score indicates that you’ve built strong emotional equity, credibility, and satisfaction—critical in B2B, where referrals and reputation heavily influence buying decisions.
- Digital engagement and self-service adoption: When buyers actively engage with content, communities, and documentation, it signals that the brand is easy to navigate and buyer-centric. High self-service usage also shows that the brand experience reduces friction.
Tip: Shopify Analytics unifies data wherever you sell and presents the most important metrics on over 60 prebuilt reporting dashboards. You can also customize dashboards and share the most important KPIs with stakeholders without additional integrations.
Future trends shaping B2B brands
We’ve come a long way from faxing orders as buyers’ comfort with self-serve increases. Here are two B2B ecommerce trends we’re expecting to see.
AI and personalization in B2B branding
A recent report found almost three-quarters of B2B buyers expect suppliers to know when, where, and how they want personalized interactions. But there’s a mismatch between their expectations and the experiences on offer: roughly half say companies don’t understand their preferences.
When you have the right infrastructure, you can offer personalized B2B experiences that feel both automated and human—anticipating buyer needs rather than reacting to them. These experiences are becoming the default and aren’t differentiators.
Shopify’s unified data model, for instance, compiles every piece of data into a unified profile. Order history, sales rep notes, open quotes, customer loyalty program participation, and more feed back to this 360-degree customer view, so you can:
- Segment buyers and use Shopify Flow to automate personalized outreach
- Initiate predictive ordering and smart recommendations based on a buyer’s order history.
- Deploy personalized content and pricing at scale to create a website that feels built for each individual buyer
These automations help brands deliver faster, more relevant interactions—without losing the personal touch buyers want.
Sustainability and purpose-driven B2B brands
Sustainability is a topic that’s dominated the past decade as consumers search for ways to reduce their carbon footprint.
These consumers are applying the same standards to B2B purchases. Per Bain, half of B2B buyers assign more orders to sustainable suppliers. Their research estimates this could increase to around two-thirds within three years.
For B2B brands, sustainability is increasingly part of the brand identity—not just an operational choice. Sharing environmental commitments and supply chain transparency builds trust and signals long-term reliability. When buyers know what sustainability goals you’re working towards, they may be more inclined to support your brand as their purchase aligns with their personal values.
B2B brands FAQ
What are B2B brands?
B2B brands are companies that sell products or services to other businesses. They sell to stakeholders at these businesses instead of end consumers.
What's the difference between B2B and B2C branding?
B2B branding focuses on building trust, expertise, and long-term value for multiple stakeholders involved in a complex buying process. B2C branding is more about emotional connection, fast decision-making, and mass-market appeal.
How do B2B brands measure success differently than B2C?
B2B brands measure success through metrics tied to long sales cycles and relationship value—things like lead quality, customer lifetime value, and retention. B2C brands focus more on high-volume metrics such as reach, purchase frequency, average order value, and short-term conversion rates.
What role does digital experience play in B2B branding?
The digital experience heavily influences B2B branding as buyers search for self-service options from trusted brands. Companies that offer these experiences across different channels—and seamlessly integrate each touchpoint—are better positioned to claim online B2B purchases.
How can traditional B2B companies modernize their brand?
B2B companies can modernize their brands with tactics like:
- Establishing a strong visual brand identity with a clear, conversational tone of voice
- Investing in B2B content such as video, storytelling, and creator partnerships
- Launching a B2B storefront with self-serve functionality
- Retargeting wholesale buyers on channels traditionally viewed as DTC only
- Using data and automation to personalize touchpoints across the buyer journey
Why is self-service important for B2B brand perception?
Self-service is important because it gives B2B buyers control, speeds up decision-making, and demonstrates that you’re user-friendly and trustworthy. These are important factors in B2B buying decisions, regardless of the industry you’re operating in.
