Price Isn’t Everything: Payment Options a Deciding Factor for B2B Buyers in Europe

New international research finds invoicing and payment experience now rival price as drivers of supplier loyalty. B2B payments expert Inez Berkhof-Hollander examines what today’s business buyers want and where the gaps are widest between expectations and what’s on offer

More than half of B2B buyers across Europe encountered payment option failures with their suppliers last year, from preferred methods not being accepted and trade credit being unavailable to the complete absence of an invoicing facility. For any supplier that still regards payment as a back-office concern, separate from the commercial relationship it underpins, this is a sobering finding.

The data comes from a new Censuswide survey we commissioned of 550 finance, procurement and operations professionals across the UK, France, Germany, and Spain.

It found payment options, invoicing quality and the ease of the overall purchase-to-pay process have become primary factors in supplier selection today, outweighing price in a significant number of cases. Business buyers are becoming increasingly discerning about the ease of doing business, and they are making and acting on these judgments transaction by transaction, challenging assumptions about customer loyalty.

Payment options outweigh price for many B2B buyers

More than nine in 10 respondents in the survey said payment method choices increase their likelihood of making repeat purchases from a supplier. Two-thirds described access to trade credit — net terms of 30, 60 or 90 days — as important in supplier selection, with just under a third rating this very important. In the UK and Germany, where close to half of respondents regularly use invoice-based payment, net terms are effectively a baseline expectation rather than an additional service.

Payment method preferences vary considerably across Europe, which need to be heeded by suppliers operating across multiple markets. In Germany, 76% of buyers in the survey reported issues with the payment options offered by suppliers, far above the 37% recorded in Spain. German buyers are also more price-sensitive than any other market in the survey, with almost eight in 10 citing pricing as a factor in repeat purchasing decisions, compared with under half in Spain.

In contrast, French buyers place less weight on price and payment flexibility, and more on invoice accuracy, approval workflow efficiency and consistent purchasing processes; in other words, operational reliability over financial flexibility.

Invoicing customisation is now a loyalty driver

When asked what increases their likelihood of making repeat purchases, just over half of respondents cited invoicing-related factors. Invoice customisation, namely the ability to configure invoices to the buyer's specific organisational requirements, was rated important by four in five respondents (80%+) overall, rising to 93% in Spain.

These are not superficial preferences around formatting, but digital requirements. For a finance team operating within an ERP environment, an invoice that arrives in the wrong format, without a purchase order reference, for instance, or with incorrect pricing data, requires manual intervention to reconcile. That intervention has a cost that accrues with every transaction.

Delays in approval workflows and difficulty matching invoices to purchase orders were the two most common invoicing challenges, each cited by 34% of respondents. Both inconsistent invoice formats and limited ERP integration were considered problematic by 31%.

The significance of invoice format and structure is sharpening further as European regulatory requirements tighten. Germany’s phased B2B eInvoicing requirements came into play in January last year, under which all businesses will need to be capable of receiving structured electronic invoices. Mandatory issuance follows for larger businesses from 2027, and for all businesses by 2028. Similar requirements will take effect in France from September this year.

More broadly, the EU’s VAT in the Digital Age package, formally adopted in March 2025, sets expectations around structured eInvoicing for cross-border B2B transactions across EU member states from July 2030, with national systems required to align with EU standards by 2035.

Credit card limitations are well understood by buyers

Credit cards remain widely used across all of the markets surveyed, particularly for speed and simplicity, but the findings make clear card acceptance alone does not fulfil buyers’ broader B2B purchasing needs. Nearly three quarters of respondents said they looked for trade credit alongside credit card options, rather than as an alternative. It is the blend of available options that is important.

More than half of all respondents (57%) encountered some form of payment limitation with at least one supplier during the period studied. In Germany, the percentage rose to 76%. This is likely to indicate purchasing decisions are being redirected elsewhere. European B2B buyers have options, and are prepared to exercise them if their initial supplier choice doesn’t support the desired payment option.

AI use in purchasing is real but constrained

Roughly half of respondents reported using AI tools ‘often’ in purchasing and payment processes, with a further three in 10 doing so routinely. The leading applications for AI are currently in improving decision-making through data analysis, strengthening fraud detection and risk management, and reducing manual processing loads — areas where AI is already demonstrating value in the order-to-cash cycle — though adoption remains uneven.

In Germany, only 13% of respondents identified AI-driven decision intelligence as a current priority, compared with 26% in Spain. French respondents were most likely to cite data privacy and regulatory compliance as barriers to further investment. Across all markets, concerns about internal expertise and the absence of a clear implementation path were common — suggesting for many organisations, the gap between recognising AI’s potential and acting on it remains wide.

Where buyers want suppliers to focus

Asked directly where they wanted supplier investment directed, buyers consistently cited the same priorities: more payment options beyond credit cards; better system integration with accounts payable departments; consistent buying experiences across all channels (in store, online and via sales teams); pricing and purchasing controls; and faster, less cumbersome onboarding.

Onboarding was a particular priority in the UK, where the speed of credit approval and account set-up emerges as a competitive factor in its own right. The delay between the point when a buyer wants to begin transacting using terms and when they are approved to do so has historically been governed by manual credit assessment — a constraint that creates a poor first impression and could ultimately result in the loss of the transaction and any repeat business that might have followed.

The commercial case for closing the gap

Taken together, the survey findings identify trends that transcend individual markets and company sizes, namely the order-to-cash experience is now integral to the commercial relationship it supports. With digitally enabled operational efficiency so highly prized today, buyers are directly impacted when invoices are inaccurate and when systems do not integrate, as well as when their preferred payment terms are unavailable. When suppliers have taken the trouble to address such issues and deliver a frictionless experience, business buyers tend to notice and reward that effort.

With eInvoicing mandates across the EU now mapped to fixed, published timetables, suppliers face a narrowing window to close the gap between today’s invoicing and payments infrastructure and the standards increasingly expected by both buyers and regulators.

Inez Berkhof-Hollander is EMEA Vice President at the global B2B payments network, TreviPay. For more on the themes discussed here, you can access the complete TreviPay EMEA market research report, here.