Business to business like business to consumer

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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