2024 Buyer Experience Study: Manufacturing Takeaways

saraboostani

Hey all,

I'm a Market Research Analyst here on the 6sense Research team led by former VP and Principal Analyst with Forrester, @Kerry . Together, we research all things B2B. One of our favorite areas to study is the buying process. Over the past two years, we’ve heard from nearly 3,500 recent B2B buyers, learning a lot about the realities of how buyers buy.

Here’s what we know about B2B buying behavior in general: The typical journey spans 11.5 months, with a team of 11 individuals evaluating an average of 4.6 vendors and logging over 800 interactions across content and direct engagements. Importantly, most buying teams wait until they’re about 70% through the journey to engage with sellers. By then, 85% have fully or mostly defined their requirements, and more than 80% have already chosen a preferred vendor.

Since we've released this year's Buyer Experience Report just a couple weeks ago, a common question has been how these key findings vary across industries. The short answer: not by much – except for manufacturing industry purchases (~16% of our sample). Compared to buyers in other sectors, manufacturing buyers tend to evaluate fewer vendors, resulting in smaller buying groups, fewer interactions with sellers, and shorter buying cycles compared to their peers. Manufacturing buyers wait until about 65% of the way through their journey before connecting with sellers, and they initiate contact 87% of the time. In 89% of cases, they have fully or mostly defined their requirements before reaching out. Over half (56%) hire analysts or consultants to support their decision-making, and in 81% of purchases, manufacturing buyers rank their shortlist, contact their preferred vendor first, and ultimately purchase from that vendor.

@crista.messenger

Kerry

We have consistent data show the differences between manufacturing and everyone else. What we don't have are informed explanations for the differences. Any #manufacturing gurus out there have some thoughts?

Matt Starita

@Rachel Quinn @vered tomlak @larie.butler - would love your POV!