There are four key factors that make business-to-business markets special and different to consumer markets:

• The decision making unit is far more complex in business-to-business markets than in consumer markets

• Business-to-business products and their applications are more complex than consumer products

• Business-to-business marketers address a much smaller number of customers who are very much larger in their consumption of products than is the case in consumer markets

• Personal relationships are of critical importance in business-to-business markets