All vendors of good B2B or B2C systems should always have functionality where the customers is given the impression of being given the best price, their product is in stock and everything is in order even if it is the other way that the price is same as everyone else, the product is in stock and there is a disturbance in the system.

First, the price, this is a tricky one. Use "right now" prices, discounts and quantity dependant prices/discounts and do not calculate freight(or other administrative) costs in product prices, display that as their own lines in the sum ups. This way you could get the customer to buy (more) but the risk is, in these Freight free days, that the customer will exit the site in a later stage. It is my belief that you should be transparent with costs, and that costs split up in the different parts is easier to swallow as a customer even though not all will go for this.

Second, the stock out. Have a look at Sterling Commerce and their Always in stock function. This is nothing new to WMS vendors. The thing is to be smart in the display of whats in stock and using more than one warehouse and if lead times of the product is really short, display as in stock up to a limit where it is obvious that you actually do not have the product in stock right now or in a near future.
In that case, give a specific lead time and a promise to the customer that it will be in stock at a specific date and not later. The important thing here, do not promise to much and always offer realtime updates

Third, disturbances. Of course, system never goes down, not even parts of system go down. But IF this happens. Do not display to customer, depending on the severity of whats not working. If it is the frontend system thats down, the customer will understand, but in the backend system (WMS, ERP, integrations, batch jobs for example) there is no meaning with displaying or shutting down. A good idea is to mirror parts (data and logic) to the frontend system that could simulate the backend system during the time it is down. If its to big costs in resources or money and you must display information, always be transparent and the same as above, do not promise to much and always offer realtime updates of the issues

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During the years I have heard that business to business (B2B) commerce must have a look at
business to consumer (B2C) to survive or grow.

I would say it should or could be the other way around, B2C retailers are really good at marketing,
social networks and sharing, but there are some things where they could learn from B2B

• Not listening whats good for one person but for all visitors. Personalizing is good, but it takes time from important things like giving the other customers service and in a business time is money even if it is different ROI on different times
• Dont be hysteric about prices, what´s really important is the service level you can offer to all customers in form of delivery times, stock figures, order history and more basic functions and of course that the solutions is fast and secure
• Dont leave everything to the end user, help him decide. By giving the person whats good enough could be a good starting point of making your assortments smaller so there isnt that many products just taking up important space at you or your suppliers warehouse
• Viral marketing is not all good, anyone tried to let 5 persons stand in a line, say something to the first person and then let them whisper the thing to the next inline and see if it was what you said to the first that the last person says?

This is of course not the entire truth, I know, but what I want to say is that it is important to learn from each other. 

I admit that its fun to work with B2C since thats where the cool and new techniques is developed but I think B2B is as fun and challenging to work with since there the heavy things like automization and integration is more important even though more and more B2B wants upselling functionality in their solutions.

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