Promotion types that work in B2B
Five promotion mechanics earn their keep in B2B, and several famous ones do not. The difference is not taste. It is that your buyer is spending someone else's money, against a requirement, often with an approver behind them.
What a professional buyer responds to
A purchasing agent has to justify the order internally. Every mechanic below works because it gives them an argument they can put in writing: the unit price is lower, the total is lower, the second delivery is avoided. Mechanics that rely on urgency or emotion give them nothing to write down — and mark you as a supplier who does not understand who they are selling to.
1. Volume incentive
Order 500, pay for 450. Or −5 % above €2,500 net in the cart.
The workhorse. It moves the order quantity up a step, and the buyer can defend it with arithmetic.
Where it overlaps with pricing. A scale price does the same job inside the price list, and it is visible everywhere a price is — on the product page, in the punchout catalogue, in a quote drafted tomorrow. Prefer a scale price when the break is permanent and a promotion when it is a campaign. Running both on the same article gives the volume away twice.
The trap. Volume incentives work only where the customer can absorb the volume. A buyer with no storage, a shelf life, or a budget that resets in December will not take 500 because 500 is cheaper — and if they do, you will see it again as a return.
2. Bundle
The machine with its consumable kit, at one price.
The most valuable mechanic in technical B2B, because it sells the thing the buyer would otherwise order six weeks later in a separate transaction with separate freight. It also raises the switching cost: a customer who buys the kit with the machine has your consumables in their store room.
It depends on catalogue work — knowing which consumable belongs to which machine — which is where the effort actually is. See Bundles and kits and Reference entities.
3. Free goods
12 + 1. Order twelve, receive thirteen, pay for twelve.
Standard practice in wholesale, and it survives in B2B where a percentage discount would not, because it is a rebate in goods rather than a change to the price. The customer's own systems keep the article's price stable, which purchasing departments like: a price that moves triggers a review, a free unit does not.
4. Sales-rep coupons
A code the rep hands to an account, worth −8 % on the next order.
The one mechanic where a coupon code makes sense in B2B. It gives your field sales a concrete thing to offer, with a value you set, an expiry you set, and a redemption you can count — instead of the alternative, which is a rep granting an ad-hoc discount that quietly becomes that customer's permanent price.
Uses that work: winning back an account that has gone quiet, getting a first online order from a customer who still phones, a trade-fair follow-up, an apology after a delivery failure.
Give every code an owner, a value ceiling and an expiry. See Coupons and codes.
5. Assortment expansion
−10 % on the fastener range, for customers who have never ordered from it.
The highest-margin promotion type in B2B and the least used. Your existing customers already trust you; most of them buy a fraction of what you sell, because offline they only ever knew the part of the range their sales contact talked about. The barrier is not price — it is that they do not know you carry it.
It is built from a segment plus a product condition: customers with no orders in category X in the last twelve months, discount on category X. See Segments and, for the strategic version of the same idea, Raise order value.
Measure it on the second order, not the first. The first order is the discount working; the second is the assortment actually expanding.
What does not work
| Mechanic | Why it fails in B2B |
|---|---|
| Countdown timers | The buyer needs an approval that takes four days. A clock tells them not to bother |
| Scarcity claims | "Only 3 left" against an article you stock in thousands reads as dishonest, and a technical buyer will check |
| Flash sales | Purchasing does not monitor your shop for two-hour windows |
| Percentage-off-everything | Hits your contract customers hardest and buys nothing — see Promotions vs. contract prices |
| Free shipping, unconditional | In B2B freight is a real, often large cost. Above a threshold, fine; unconditional, you are paying pallet freight out of margin |
| Gamification, spin-to-win | Your buyer is at work |
| Personal-emotion messaging | The order is for the company. "Treat yourself" is noise |
Choosing between them
| Your goal | Mechanic |
|---|---|
| Bigger orders from existing customers | Volume incentive, or a scale price if it is permanent |
| Higher value per order | Bundle |
| Keep a wholesale customer ordering at the same price | Free goods |
| Recover a lapsed account | Rep coupon |
| Sell more of the range to the same customers | Assortment expansion |
| Clear a discontinued article | Time-limited price, not a promotion |
| Win a competitive tender | A quote, not a promotion |
The last row is worth stating. A promotion is a rule that applies to everyone who matches. A negotiation with one customer belongs in a quote or a contract price, where it has an owner, an approval trail and an end date.
Next
- Create a promotion — building the rule.
- Run a campaign — several promotions with one purpose.