How buyers find suppliers today.

The call comes late

The US software company 6sense surveys purchasing decision-makers every year. In 2025 it was almost 4,000. The finding: on average, buyers get in touch only once 61 per cent of the buying process is behind them. A year earlier it was 69 per cent.

In Germany, first contact comes at 59 per cent, down from 67 in 2024. Earlier than before, then, but still past the halfway point. Until then the buying team researches on its own, and your sales team hears nothing about it.

The list is set on day one

What matters is not when the call comes but what has been decided by then. According to the same study, the eventual winner is already on the day-one shortlist in 95 per cent of cases. Four out of five deals go to the vendor that was the favourite before the first conversation. In Europe, the winner is on the list from the start in 92.4 per cent of cases.

The consequence is uncomfortable: if you are not on the list on day one, you almost never win the deal. Even a good sales team can hardly make up for that, because often nobody asks it in the first place.

Germany compares more thoroughly

The study reports separate figures for Germany. Buying groups have grown from nine to eleven people. The buying process takes longer, eleven months instead of nine. And on average 5.3 vendors are compared, up from 3.7 the year before.

That means eleven people look at your presence without you being there. They compare your company with four others. And they do it over months, again and again.

What role language models play

Of the buyers surveyed, 94 per cent use language models such as ChatGPT in the buying process; in Germany the share is just as high. The study also notes that they do not talk to vendors any less because of it, and they rely on vendor content just as much as before.

That adds up. A language model relies on what is on the web and summarises it. What is not written down anywhere, it cannot pass on. The most reliable source about your company is your own website. How a company gets named in such answers is covered in How to get found in ChatGPT.

What a buyer needs to find on your site

From our work with suppliers, manufacturers and trade businesses: before the call, a buyer looks for answers to a few very specific questions. Each of them belongs on the website as text, not only in a PDF or an image.

• What you make: processes, materials, dimensions, tolerances.
• In what quantities: from samples to series production, with batch sizes.
• With what proof: certificates such as ISO 9001 or EN 9100.
• For whom: industries and references, where customers agree.
• Where and how fast: location, delivery area, usual lead times.
• Who to talk to: a name and a direct line, not just a contact form.

Marketing language does not help here. A buyer cannot compare “tailor-made solutions”, and a language model cannot quote them. “Milling up to 800 millimetres, batch sizes from 20 units, certified to EN 9100” works for both.

What this means for sales

Sales does not become redundant, but its role shifts. According to 6sense, 79 per cent of contacts are initiated by the buyer, and in 77 per cent of cases the buyer contacts the eventual winner first. Sales wins the deal. Whether the call comes at all is decided by your presence, in the months when nobody from your company is at the table.

Sources

• 6sense: The 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report
• 6sense: How European B2B Buying Journeys Differ (and Don’t) From the Rest
• 6sense: How GenAI and LLMs Are Changing B2B Buyer Research

For context: respondents were decision-makers worldwide, mostly from technology and services, 14 per cent from manufacturing. A quarter of the purchases were physical goods. We expect the direction to hold for technical SMEs as well. Exact values may differ.