How buyers research suppliers in 2025

Your buyer has already made their shortlist—and you weren’t on it.

That’s the uncomfortable reality for most manufacturing suppliers today. Research shows that 86% of enterprise buyers start with brands they already know, and 71% purchase from their first-choice brand on that list. By the time a procurement manager picks up the phone to request a quote, they’ve already spent weeks—sometimes months—researching suppliers without you knowing.

The B2B buying journey has fundamentally changed. Your potential customers are no longer waiting for sales calls or trade show meetings to begin their research. They’re evaluating your capabilities, reputation, and reliability through digital channels long before any human contact happens. This shift represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Understanding exactly how buyers research and evaluate suppliers gives you a roadmap for ensuring you’re discovered and shortlisted when it matters most.

The invisible majority of the buyer journey

Here’s what keeps sales directors awake at night: between 83% and 95% of the B2B buyer journey happens anonymously before any direct contact with suppliers. Your buyer is already comparing your capabilities against competitors, reading reviews from your existing customers, checking your certifications and compliance credentials, and evaluating your digital presence as a proxy for operational competence. They’re doing all of this without filling out a single contact form or speaking to anyone from your team.

The numbers paint a stark picture of this new reality. Fewer than 25% of UK B2B buyers want to interact with sales reps in person, even post-pandemic. Three-quarters of B2B buyers now prefer a rep-free sales experience entirely. This doesn’t mean relationships are dead—far from it. But the relationship now starts much earlier in the process, through digital channels you may not be monitoring or optimizing.

The financial implications are substantial. In the UK alone, B2B accounts for £1.7 trillion in turnover, with £159.3 billion in e-commerce sales. More striking still, 96% of UK B2B buyers make purchases over $50,000 in digital self-service portals. One in five would spend more than $500,000 digitally, and a small percentage would spend over $1 million in fully remote models. Your digital presence isn’t just marketing anymore—it’s fundamental sales infrastructure.

Five stages buyers move through when researching suppliers

Understanding the buyer journey helps you show up at the right moments with the right information. Procurement teams at manufacturing companies typically move through five distinct research phases, each with different information needs and decision criteria.

Problem identification begins when a production manager notices recurring quality issues with a current supplier, or an operations director realizes they need new capabilities to fulfill a major contract. At this stage, buyers are still defining the problem. They’re searching for industry benchmarks and standards, technical specifications and requirements, and case studies showing how similar companies solved comparable issues. Your opportunity here is to be present in educational content that helps buyers frame their problem correctly—technical guides, industry standards documentation, and thought leadership that demonstrates deep domain expertise.

Solution exploration starts once the problem is clear. Buyers begin researching different approaches and supplier types, asking which solutions exist and which approach best fits their situation. They now interact with ten or more channels throughout their journey, including industry publications and technical forums, LinkedIn and professional networks, YouTube for process demonstrations and facility tours, and industry associations and trade bodies. Social media plays a significant role: 55% of B2B buyers use it for research, rising to 70% for purchase decision makers. Create content that compares different solution approaches objectively. Show your expertise by helping buyers make informed decisions, even if that means acknowledging where different approaches make sense.

Supplier identification and shortlisting is the critical stage where buyers build their longlist of potential suppliers, then narrow it to a shortlist of three to five companies. They’re examining technical capabilities and certifications, geographic coverage and delivery capabilities, company stability and track record, and digital presence as a signal of operational sophistication. Since 83% of B2B buyers prefer to self-serve orders online through dedicated platforms, your website isn’t just marketing—it’s now part of your sales infrastructure. Ensure your digital presence immediately communicates core capabilities, relevant certifications, and proof points. Make it effortless for buyers to assess whether you’re worth their time to contact.

Deep evaluation and validation happens once you’re shortlisted. Buyers dig deep into each supplier’s credibility and capabilities. This scrutiny is thorough and unforgiving: 77% of B2B buyers consult user reviews during their purchasing journey, and 54% speak directly with current customers before purchasing. They’re examining third-party reviews and customer testimonials, case studies with quantified results, facility certifications and audit reports, and financial stability and business continuity planning. Build a library of detailed case studies with specific metrics. Make customer references easy to connect with. Display certifications prominently and keep them current.

Commercial evaluation and selection is the final stage, where buyers request quotes and negotiate terms. But by this point, their decision is largely made based on all the previous research. External factors still matter: 31% of B2B buyers delayed purchases due to budget freezes while 29% escalated purchases due to changing business needs. If you’ve done everything right in the earlier stages, you’re now negotiating from a position of strength rather than competing solely on price.

Decision criteria that determine shortlist inclusion

Different factors matter at different journey stages, but certain criteria consistently influence whether you make the shortlist or get eliminated before you even know an opportunity exists.

Technical capability and certifications give buyers confidence you can deliver what they need. Industry-specific certifications—ISO standards, sector-specific accreditations—act as table stakes. Without them, you’re often eliminated immediately. Document your capabilities clearly: machinery and equipment, production capacity, quality control processes, technical expertise, and any specialized capabilities that differentiate you. Don’t make buyers hunt for this information. If they can’t quickly verify you meet their technical requirements, they’ll move to the next supplier on their list.

Proof and social validation have become non-negotiable. Buyers trust other buyers more than they trust your marketing claims. Create detailed case studies that include the customer’s specific challenge, your solution approach, quantified results such as cost savings or quality improvements, and customer quotes with names and companies (with permission). Generic testimonials carry little weight. Buyers want to see evidence that you’ve solved problems similar to theirs, with measurable outcomes they can benchmark against their own situation.

Operational reliability addresses buyer risk assessment. Will you deliver on time? Will quality be consistent? Will you still be in business in five years? Demonstrate reliability through quality management systems and audit results, on-time delivery metrics, capacity information and scalability, business continuity and contingency planning, and financial stability indicators. Buyers are making long-term supplier decisions. They need confidence not just in your current capabilities but in your sustained ability to perform.

Digital sophistication signals operational competence. A poorly maintained website, outdated information, or difficult-to-navigate technical specs suggest similar issues in your operations. Buyers increasingly expect self-service options for checking specifications, stock availability, and capabilities through your digital channels. If you make this difficult, they’ll move to competitors who make it easier. Your digital presence is your first impression, your always-available sales representative, and your operational credibility check—all rolled into one.

Responsiveness and communication reveal how you’ll behave as a supplier. How quickly you respond to initial inquiries becomes a proxy for reliability and customer service. Slow response times, difficulty reaching the right person, or unclear communication eliminate suppliers from shortlists before serious discussions begin. Manufacturing companies implementing AI-powered chatbots for initial lead qualification saw a 50% faster lead qualification process, ensuring no inquiry sits unanswered while teams focus on high-value conversations.

Practical steps to get discovered and shortlisted

Understanding the journey is valuable, but you need concrete actions to improve your visibility and selection rates. The following approaches help you show up at the right moments with the information buyers need to include you on their shortlist.

Start by optimizing for the channels buyers actually use. Stop investing heavily in channels that feel comfortable—trade magazines, traditional advertising—if your buyers aren’t using them anymore. Focus instead on LinkedIn, where you can share technical expertise, case studies, and industry insights while engaging in groups where procurement teams ask questions and seek recommendations. Industry-specific forums and communities matter because manufacturing buyers often start research in specialized spaces where they can ask peers for supplier recommendations. YouTube provides an opportunity to create facility tours, process demonstrations, and technical how-to content that builds confidence through visual proof of capabilities. And ensure your website loads quickly, works perfectly on mobile devices, and makes key information—capabilities, certifications, case studies, contact options—immediately accessible.

Create content mapped to each journey stage. For problem identification, develop technical guides, industry standards references, and benchmark data. During solution exploration, buyers need comparison guides, approach breakdowns, and process explanations. When evaluating suppliers, they want detailed case studies, capability statements, and certification documents. At commercial evaluation, provide clear pricing frameworks (even if not specific prices), terms and conditions, and delivery options. A UK industrial equipment supplier that implemented this content approach saw dramatically improved conversion rates because buyers arrived at commercial conversations already confident in the supplier’s capabilities.

Make customer voices central to your marketing. Stop talking about yourself and let customers do the talking. Personalized sales experiences are now expected by 85% of buyers, and customer testimonials provide this personalization by showing how you’ve solved problems similar to the buyer’s situation. Create a systematic process to request testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers, develop detailed case studies with quantified results, offer reference calls with existing customers, and encourage customers to recommend you in industry forums and on LinkedIn. Third-party validation carries exponentially more weight than your own claims.

Implement AI-driven lead generation to identify buyers earlier. The biggest challenge is that most research happens anonymously. By the time someone fills out a contact form, they’ve already formed strong opinions about your capabilities relative to competitors. AI-powered lead generation identifies high-intent prospects based on online behavior before they directly contact you. This allows you to engage potential buyers earlier in their journey with relevant information, increasing the likelihood of shortlist inclusion. Manufacturing firms implementing AI-powered prospect scoring reduced sales cycles by 15% and increased conversions by 22% through weighted scoring criteria that accurately reflected their specific conversion patterns.

Maintain consistent, fast responsiveness. Sales teams using AI automation achieved a 40% reduction in administrative tasks, freeing staff for high-value conversations while ensuring no inquiry goes unanswered. When a buyer finally reaches out after weeks of research, they expect a fast, informed response. Slow replies suggest operational inefficiency and risk losing the opportunity to more responsive competitors. Automated systems can handle initial qualification, route inquiries to the right specialists, and ensure follow-up happens reliably—while still maintaining the human touch buyers value for complex technical discussions.

Use personalization to stand out from generic outreach. Personalized emails achieve 29% higher open rates, and personalized subject lines alone boost opens by 26%. When you do engage with potential buyers, demonstrate you understand their specific situation by referencing their industry challenges, mentioning relevant case studies from similar companies, showing awareness of their business context, and tailoring technical information to their specific needs. This level of personalization is difficult to achieve manually at scale, which is why UK SaaS companies implementing AI-driven personalization achieved a 25% reduction in sales cycles and 30% higher conversion rates.

Turning buyer research patterns into your competitive advantage

Traditional manufacturing suppliers often resist investing in digital channels and content, believing their industry is “different” or that buyers prefer the old ways. But the data is unambiguous: buyers have already changed how they research and select suppliers. The question isn’t whether to adapt—it’s how quickly you can close the gap before competitors do.

Your buyers are out there right now, actively researching suppliers for opportunities you don’t even know exist yet. They’re visiting websites, reading reviews, watching videos, and asking peers for recommendations. The suppliers who get shortlisted are those who show up in these moments with the right information, proof points, and accessibility. They’ve made it effortless for buyers to assess capabilities, validate credibility, and feel confident reaching out.

If you want to be discovered and chosen by more of the right buyers, you need visibility and credibility throughout the entire journey—not just when someone finally requests a quote. Sera’s AI-driven lead generation platform helps manufacturing suppliers identify high-intent buyers earlier in their research process, engage with personalized outreach that stands out, and maintain consistent follow-up that builds trust—all while your team focuses on closing deals rather than manual prospecting.