Not all purchases are the same. Sometimes, buyers acquire a solution that provides completely new business capabilities. But most of the time, buyers are just renewing, replacing or improving what already exists. Yet, each of these types of purchases demands individuals from numerous company departments, months of reviewing information and talking with experts, hundreds of interactions with sellers, and much else.
In this article, we compare the key findings of our B2B Buyer Experience Study across four types of purchases – acquiring new business capabilities, improving existing capabilities, renewals, and replacing existing capabilities – to understand how they stack up.
First, here’s a quick run-down of what we know about B2B buying generally.
The typical B2B buyer is a group of 11 individuals who conduct an 11.5-month buying journey. During that journey, buyers evaluate an average of 4.6 vendors and have more than 800 interactions – content and people interactions – across that journey. Crucially, the typical buying group does not engage with sellers until they reach the 70% mark of their journey, and by that time 85% of them will have mostly or completely set their requirements, and more than 80% will have picked a favorite vendor.
Key Findings by Type of Purchase
The table below presents ten key findings from our 2024 Buyer Experience Report, organized by purchase type. In the sections that follow, we explore each in more detail.
Point of First Contact Between Buyers and Sellers
The Point of First Contact (POFC) refers to the moment in the buying journey when buyers begin connecting with sellers. This happens over two-thirds of the way through the process and is so consistent that we refer to it as the POFC ‘Constant.’ Few factors shift this timing, though evaluating more vendors than average does push buyers to engage sellers even later.
Buyers seeking new business capabilities typically evaluate one more vendor than average, and in the chart above, the only statistically reliable difference in POFC is between these buyers and those improving existing capabilities. While the difference is statistically reliable, it is not meaningfully different.
Buyer-Initiated First Contact
There are no statistically reliable differences in buyers’ tendency to initiate contact with vendors, as shown in the chart above. Regardless of the type of business need a buyer is satisfying, buyers take control and initiate contact in over 80% of cases. Even when vendors actively reach out (via emails, calls, or social media), buyers still wait until they are ready—ignoring outreach in over 74% of cases before making the first move themselves.
When Buyers Set Their Purchase Requirements
Across all purchases, eight out of ten buyers have fully established their requirements before contacting sellers or make only slight adjustments after doing so. Buyers looking to improve existing capabilities or renew solutions tend to have requirements fixed slightly more than their peers, but the difference is modest.
Buyers Choose a Winning Vendor Before They Connect with Sellers
Perhaps the most important finding from our buying journey research is that buying groups rank their shortlist of potential vendors with a likely winner atop the list before they begin engaging with vendors. And when they start to engage, they begin with their favorite. Globally, buyers have identified that favorite in more than 80% of cases prior to reaching out. Shown in the graph above, buyers replacing or improving an existing capability do this somewhat less than those renewing or seeking new capabilities, but it still occurs in over three-quarters or more of these cases.
The Help of Analysts and Consultants
Globally, over seven out of ten buying groups rely on analysts or consultants for guidance during their purchase process. This practice is common across all purchase types but somewhat more likely for those adding new business capabilities. Buyers that are renewing or replacing existing capabilities are the least likely to engage outside help.
How Long is the Shortlist?
Acquiring new business capabilities generally comes at a higher cost ($300K to $400K) compared to the other three purchase types—Improving, Renewing, and Replacing solutions—where costs average $200K to $300K. Consequently, buyers seeking new capabilities tend to include an additional vendor on their evaluation shortlist. As we’ll explore in the following sections, evaluating this extra vendor significantly extends the length of their buying journey, increases the number of people involved, and amplifies the volume of interactions with vendors. Meanwhile, the slight differences in vendor count among the other three purchase types are not statistically reliable. Simply put, buyers focused on improving, renewing, or replacing solutions evaluate a comparable number of vendors while buyers of new business capabilities evaluate one more.
Buying Group Size
We have seen that new capability buyers evaluate one more vendor than other types of buyers. They also tend to employe larger buying groups. As we have discussed in earlier reports, there is a strong, statistically reliable correlation between the number of vendors evaluated and the size of the buying group. As more vendors are added to the list, additional team members are needed to share the workload. Buyers acquiring new business capabilities tend to evaluate one more vendor than their peers, leading them to be a part of larger buying groups.
Number of Buyer-to-Vendor Interactions
The chart above shows the compounded effect of evaluating more or fewer vendors. Buyers seeking new business capabilities reliably evaluate more vendors, have bigger buying teams, and engage in more interactions with sellers. On the other hand, reducing the number of vendors on buyers’ shortlist decreases the workload, requires fewer people to share the work, and results in each member of the buying team having fewer interactions with sellers.
Buying Cycle Length
Purchases for New Business Capabilities are nearly 40% longer than others. Acquiring new capabilities likely involves creating new business justification for acquiring the category of solution in question and identifying funding. Undoubtedly, these requirements extend the purchase timeline relative to other purchase types.
We also see the impact of evaluating more vendors becomes clear yet again when we look at the length of the buying cycle. Buyers acquiring new business solutions consistently evaluate one additional vendor compared to their peers, resulting in larger buying teams, more interactions with sellers, and longer buying cycles. In contrast, buyers renewing, replacing, or improving existing capabilities tend to evaluate one fewer vendor, leading to smaller teams, fewer interactions, and shorter buying cycles.
Buyers Know the Field
A new question in this year’s survey asked buyers whether they had prior experience with vendors they evaluated for the purchase in question. Collectively, 84% of buyers indicated they had previously worked with the vendor they ultimately selected. The chart above shows the distribution across purchase types. While buyers renewing or continuing an existing solution are, unsurprisingly, more likely to have prior experience with their chosen vendor, what’s surprising is how closely their peers follow.
One of These Is Not Like the Others
Compared to buyers renewing, improving, or replacing existing capabilities, those acquiring new business solutions tend to evaluate more vendors, leading to larger buying groups, more interactions with sellers, and longer buying cycles.
For some solution categories, buyers are frequently acquiring that category of solution for the first time. In others, brand new customers to the category are rare. The same can be said when solution providers move into new segments and geographies. Because there are such substantial differences in the buying process for buyers acquiring new capabilities, organizations should evaluate their buyer segments to align planning, marketing, and selling practices appropriately.
