The Shifting Nature of B2B Purchasing: From Sales-Assisted to Self-Service
What happens when your biggest customers want to buy two completely different ways? That’s the reality cloud providers, resellers, and distributors face today. For years, large-scale B2B tech purchases were almost always sales-assisted. Customers relied on resellers and distributors to purchase on their behalf, manage billing, and track commitments.
But that model is shifting fast. Increasingly, buyers expect the convenience of self-service tools, with over 90% of B2B decision-makers now prefer digital-first sales options, according to Forbes. “That’s just for small purchases,” you’re thinking, "Office supplies, a software license there, etc.” Wrong.
According to that same study in Forbes, nearly all B2B decision-makers are comfortable placing high-dollar orders digitally, without ever talking to a salesperson. This change creates a dilemma for tech providers, distributors, and resellers. You can reach the self-service crowd easily by launching a digital storefront or cloud marketplace, but many marketplace platforms push them to digitize by going all in on self-service. And doing so not only requires an overhaul of their operations, but risks alienating the large and legacy customers who still expect assisted purchasing.
Of course, there’s the alternative: running multiple, siloed systems for self-service and assisted sales, which fragments the sales process and makes it especially difficult for partners who need to track cloud spend and commitments across multiple customers and tiers. That’s where an Omnichannel Marketplace Platform comes in.
What Is an Omnichannel Marketplace Platform? Definition and Key Features
What Is an Omnichannel Marketplace Platform? In simple terms, an omnichannel marketplace is one that creates a unified buying experience, allowing customers and partners to move seamlessly between self-service channels and assisted channels without friction.
Analysts often call this “hybrid buying and selling.” For resellers, it means they can engage customers however they want to purchase: whether that’s clicking “buy now” online, working directly with a sales rep, or delegating purchases to a trusted partner. An omnichannel marketplace platform is not just a storefront. It’s a commerce hub that connects every way of purchasing into one ecosystem.
Instead of forcing buyers into a single rigid process, it supports multiple methods at once:
- Self-service sales: A customer or partner logs in, browses the catalog, compares options, and checks out on their own—much like an e-commerce experience.
- Assisted sales: A reseller, distributor, or provider helps the customer complete the purchase, either on their behalf or in collaboration.
- API-driven transactions: Purchases flow through backend integrations, syndication models, or white-labeled experiences that connect into existing systems.
The value is in choice and consistency. No matter how the transaction happens, it’s managed through the same platform. The buyer experience feels unified, and the seller maintains visibility and control.
Hybrid Buying in B2B Marketplaces: Why Flexibility Matters
The Risks of Being Forced Into a Self-Service-Only Model
The moment many providers, resellers, and distributors decide—or are forced—to modernize, they hit a wall: most marketplace platforms equate “digital sales” with “self-service only.” If you adopt one of these platforms, you’re forced to funnel all transactions into a single e-commerce experience, but in B2B software, one size never fits all, especially when it comes to modernization. Customers evolve at different speeds. Some customers want speed and autonomy, while others need guidance or want to do it the old way. An omnichannel marketplace enables both.
Self-service works best when:
- A tech-savvy customer wants to move fast and, for example, spin up a trial immediately.
- A reseller is purchasing add-ons or renewals they already understand.
- An ISV wants to lower cost of sale for repeatable, low-touch products.
Assisted sales works best when:
- The solution is complex and requires configuration or bundling.
- A customer wants a trusted advisor to validate the right license mix.
- Procurement policies mandate that a partner submit the purchase on their behalf.
In practice, many transactions combine both approaches. For example, a customer may browse products on a white-labeled marketplace to research options, then call their reseller to finalize the purchase. Or a partner may want to display and offer listings in their own branded experience while still completing backend orders through the provider’s platform. These partners and customers can’t fit a self-service-only system to their processes.
There’s too much variance in B2B tech and cloud sales to adhere to a rigid system.
B2B Sales Fragmentation: Why Multiple Systems Hurt Distributors and Resellers
When platforms force partners into self-service-only models, the workaround is usually to keep assisted deals running in parallel: through separate consoles, spreadsheets, or manual processes. That’s where even deeper problems start. Instead of simplifying sales, this approach fragments the buying journey across multiple systems, leaving partners to reconcile disconnected transactions after the fact.
For distributors, MSPs, and resellers, this fragmentation is more than inconvenient, it’s risky. These partners are often managing usage across dozens or hundreds of customers, all while tracking against cloud commitments. If some purchases live in one portal and others in spreadsheets or vendor consoles, reconciliation becomes a nightmare.
The impact isn’t abstract. It can mean:
- Missed incentive payouts because reporting is incomplete.
- Hidden overages when usage data doesn’t align.
- Slower billing cycles and customer frustration.
In short, the very platforms meant to “digitize” sales, speeding things up and simplifying them, end up creating new complexity.
Omnichannel Marketplace Platforms: Digitization Without Trade-Offs
An omnichannel marketplace platform avoids this forced choice. It brings self-service and assisted channels into one workflow, so partners don’t have to decide between modernization and customer retention.
- Self-service buyers get the autonomy they want.
- Assisted buyers still get white-glove purchasing support.
- Partners get a single source of truth for transactions, usage, and spend, no matter how the purchase happened.
This model is especially powerful in tiered ecosystems. A distributor can let some resellers transact directly while others rely on assisted deals. All the while, the distributor or reseller can still keep commitments, billing, and reporting unified.
Future-Proofing B2B Growth with an Omnichannel Marketplace Approach
The real reason omnichannel matters is simple: The future of cloud commerce is hybrid buying and selling. An omnichannel marketplace platform ensures partners can evolve without leaving anyone behind. Digitization can happen at full speed, but not at the cost of legacy customers or accurate spend tracking. That makes omnichannel more than a feature. It’s a growth strategy. It gives resellers and distributors the flexibility to win with digital-first buyers while continuing to serve high-touch clients, all on the same platform.
For providers, that means streamlined operations and happier partners. For resellers, it means freedom to sell and support customers however they choose to buy.
At the end of the day, omnichannel isn’t about the technology alone. It’s about empowering choice and enabling success, and making sure every transaction, whether self-directed or partner-assisted, feels effortless.
Ready to Eliminate the Trade-Off?
Apptium’s Cloud Commerce Platform (CCP) is built to unify self-service and assisted channels into one seamless system. With CCP, you can digitize your sales motions without leaving legacy customers behind, giving every buyer the flexibility to purchase the way they prefer.
Learn how CCP delivers a true omnichannel marketplace experience.
Explore Apptium’s Cloud Commerce Platform
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