Glossary

Self-service

The ability for a B2B buyer to complete a purchase, from finding a product through checkout and shipping, entirely online without needing to call, email, or fax anyone.

Self-service sounds like a baseline expectation, yet Master B2B’s reporting has repeatedly found B2B checkouts breaking down at exactly the moments that require a phone call: complex shipping, credit terms, or non-standard product configuration. One practitioner example involved wire sold on a reel, where shipping historically had to be calculated after the fact by phone; the fix was building the reel and its dimensions directly into the product configuration so shipping could resolve automatically in the cart. The broader lesson is that self-service is not one feature to add but a discipline of finding every point in the buying journey that still quietly assumes a human will step in, and removing it.

New: B2B Exchange at Shoptalk Presented by Master B2B

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