Suppliers and buyers often see the purchasing process differently. In Deloitte Digital’s 2026 B2B commerce research, 72% of suppliers said their sales processes were mostly or highly automated, while only 47% of buyers said purchasing processes were mostly or highly automated. Gartner predicts that 75% of B2B organizations will complete their highest-revenue deals through digital channels by 2028, making digital checkout increasingly consequential as more high-value purchasing moves online.
Table of Contents
- How B2B Checkout Differs From B2C Checkout
- 4 Major B2B Checkout Challenges
- FAQs About B2B Checkout
- Building a B2B Checkout Buyers Will Actually Use
How B2B Checkout Differs From B2C Checkout
B2B checkout is the online process a business buyer uses to complete a purchase. It differs from B2C checkout because business purchases often involve approvals, negotiated pricing, invoicing, and payment terms.
Those requirements — approvals, negotiated pricing, invoicing, and payment terms — are less common in consumer checkout, which is why B2B checkout can fail in ways retail checkout doesn’t.
Consumer checkout friction can center on issues such as shipping costs. Procurement requirements can also block B2B buyers: the order may need a purchase order number the site can’t accept, the buyer may need a payment method the checkout doesn’t offer, or the buyer’s contract may require net 30 terms instead of immediate payment.
4 Major B2B Checkout Challenges
The four B2B checkout problems in this guide center on speed, payment methods, payment terms, and mobile experience. Each can block a buyer who has already chosen the supplier, so it’s important to diagnose these e-commerce challenges before investing in more acquisition.
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1. Not Optimized for Speed
Slow checkout creates friction when the digital channel requires more work than the buyer expects. Deloitte Digital’s 2026 B2B Digital Commerce Report found that 65% of B2B buyers select purchasing channels based on ease of use. When checkout adds unnecessary steps, the digital channel stops delivering the ease buyers say they value.
Slow checkout friction is often structural rather than cosmetic. Buyers can land in flows that ask for information the supplier already has, spread a single order across multiple pages, or force account creation before showing a total. In the same study, buyers were 6x as likely as suppliers to describe purchasing and sales processes as mostly manual, suggesting that suppliers may underestimate the extent of manual friction buyers experience.
Solution: Remove steps before optimizing the ones that remain.
- Prefill what’s already known. Returning buyers shouldn’t re-enter shipping addresses, billing contacts, or other information already stored on their account.
- Collapse the flow. Where the workflow allows it, consolidate checkout steps and make progress clear, particularly for reorders where nothing has changed since the last purchase.
- Support reordering directly. Give returning buyers a way to manage repeat orders on their own schedule without starting a new sales conversation. Repeat purchases should take a few clicks, not a fresh checkout.
- Keep support reachable. Offer live chat or another real-time support option at checkout so buyers can get answers to questions that might otherwise stall the process.
2. Preferred Payment Methods Aren’t Offered
B2B buyers can abandon checkout when the payment method their company uses isn’t available. B2B payments can involve cards, bank transfers, and business-specific procurement workflows, so a buyer who pays by ACH, wire, or purchase order can’t complete a purchase on a site that only accepts cards.
Checkout also needs to handle payment timing. Standing orders, renewals, and replenishment schedules create friction when every cycle requires a fresh checkout. HubSpot’s Subscription Management can automate recurring billing and send automated payment reminders to customers when payments are due.
Solution: Match payment options to how buyers actually pay.
- Audit before adding. Pull the last 12 months of orders and identify how buyers paid, including any that closed offline because the site couldn’t process the method.
- Support multiple payment methods. Cards and digital wallets can simplify checkout, while ACH, wire transfers, and PO workflows may fit different B2B procurement needs. HubSpot Payment Links can accept credit and debit cards, ACH, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. U.S.-based businesses can also accept card payments from international buyers in 130+ currencies.
- Surface options early. A buyer who reaches the payment page and finds no usable option has already spent time on an order that can’t close.
- Compare processor support. Payment processors vary in support for ACH, international payments, and multiple currencies, as well as the fees they charge for those transactions.
3. Lack of Flexible Payment Terms
B2B purchasing can involve negotiated terms such as net 30 or net 60, purchase orders, and trade credit. A B2B checkout experience that demands immediate payment can block an order when the buyer’s agreed terms require something else.
The mismatch can be invisible to the supplier — where suppliers see an abandoned cart, buyers may see a checkout that doesn’t match the terms already negotiated. For example, when a buyer with net 45 terms in their contract reaches a payment page offering only a credit card, the order stops there.
Deloitte Digital’s 2026 B2B commerce research finds that buyers expect on-time invoicing in their preferred channel. That makes invoicing and payment terms part of the checkout experience, not simply a back-office handoff after the order is placed.
HubSpot Invoices can be created directly from deal records or published quotes, and buyers can check out directly from the invoice.
Solution: Make terms visible and approvals automatic.
- Automate credit decisions. Manual credit review can stall an otherwise ready order. Where your credit policy allows it, automate checks or provide fast decisions so qualified buyers can keep moving.
- Accept purchase orders natively. Let buyers enter a PO number during checkout and carry that information into the invoice or order record so the purchase doesn’t require a separate manual handoff.
- Give buyers a signable document. HubSpot Quote Software can include pricing, terms, e-signature, billing, and payment options so buyers can review, accept, sign, and pay within the quote experience.
- Connect quotes, invoices, and payment. HubSpot configure, price, quote (CPQ) tools support tiered pricing and approval workflows based on pricing or discount rules. Accepted quotes can generate invoices, and buyers can check out directly from those invoices. Teams can also use payment links to collect payment through a shareable checkout.
Pro tip: Abandoned-cart sequences can recover real revenue, but they can’t rescue an order when the buyer needs a payment method the checkout doesn’t offer. Fix missing payment methods before optimizing recovery email.
4. Low Mobile Conversion Rate
Mobile B2B checkout can create extra friction when buyers can’t easily review totals, payment options, or order details on a small screen. That makes a usable mobile path important even when desktop remains part of the buying workflow.
B2B buyers are consumers outside of work, and consumer checkout helps shape their expectations. HubSpot’s 2024 Consumer Trends Report found that consumers use mobile phones more than any other device for online shopping.
Freight, tax, and surcharges that appear at the final step can be frustrating on desktop, where the buyer may be able to review the full order beside the new total. On mobile, revealing freight, tax, and surcharges at the final step can force the buyer to scroll through the form to figure out what changed. If buyers can’t easily reconcile the total, they may abandon checkout.
Solution: Build for review, not just for entry.
- Show the full cost early and keep the total visible. Freight, tax, and surcharges belong at the cart stage, before the buyer commits attention to a checkout flow.
- Cut fields and improve tap targets. Every field is a chance to mistype on a phone keyboard, and cramped buttons can cause accidental taps. Keep the checkout lightweight, so it loads quickly on mobile connections.
- Support stored payment methods. Saved cards and digital wallets remove the hassle of manual card entry.
- Add progress and save-cart options. Let buyers see where they are in the process and resume an interrupted order instead of restarting it.
HubSpot’s B2B checkout provides a mobile-optimized, customizable checkout experience, while stored payment methods can speed up future invoice and subscription payments.
Pro tip: Test the full checkout on real phones and tablets across browsers and screen sizes to catch tap targets, loading, and scrolling issues before buyers do.
FAQs About B2B Checkout
What is B2B checkout?
B2B checkout is the online process a business buyer uses to complete a purchase. It often includes steps that consumer checkout doesn’t, such as purchase order entry, negotiated pricing, approval routing, and invoicing on payment terms.
Why do B2B buyers abandon checkout?
Common B2B checkout challenges include slow or repetitive flows, missing payment methods, no way to use agreed payment terms, and totals that change at the final step. These issues can block a buyer even after the purchase decision is made.
What payment terms should a B2B checkout support?
A B2B checkout may need to support account-specific terms such as net 30, net 45, net 60, or net 90. Those terms should work alongside B2B payment workflows, such as purchase order processing and invoicing, when they are part of the buyer’s procurement process, so the order doesn’t have to move offline.
Building a B2B Checkout Buyers Will Actually Use
Optimizing speed, payment methods, payment terms, and mobile experience work together because they fail together. A checkout that loads fast but won’t take a purchase order can stop the same order as one that accepts POs but takes too long to complete. Speed, payment methods, payment terms, and mobile performance form a single self-service experience, and buyers feel the friction as a single decision: is this easy, or is it easier to call someone?
Buyers are answering that question with their spend. Deloitte Digital’s 2026 Digital Commerce Report found that buyers estimate they spend 29% more with suppliers that provide a positive purchasing experience. The same study found that 92% of B2B buyers currently using electronic data interchange (EDI) plan to shift partially or completely to other channels, including ecommerce and procurement commerce. The buyers are moving. The question is whether checkout is ready when they arrive.
Most B2B checkout optimization is connection rather than construction: quotes can flow into invoicing, invoices can support checkout, and payment status can stay connected to customer records. Revenue Hub brings quoting, contracts, billing, and payments into a single connected HubSpot system, enabling teams to manage more of the quote-to-payment process alongside customer data.
Start with the existing checkout. Pull last quarter’s abandoned orders, find where they stopped, and fix that first.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Revenue Hub
Quote, bill, and collect — all through HubSpot.
- Build personalized quotes fast with AI prompts.
- Keep billing up to date for every agent and rep.
- Let payments collect themselves.
- Go from quote to close, faster.
Download Free
All fields are required.
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