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Comment by tinco | Hacker News Reader

Yeah what is going on with B2B in Europe and not showing prices? It's absolutely bonkers, I have been renovating my house the past 6 years, and to even get into the stores I had to get a business account (by cheating and using my IT business registration).

None of the websites show prices if you don't have an account, and some of them even check if your business is legit so I just get refused. The one that rejected me also seems to only allow loading goods by fully sized truck so maybe it wasn't going to happen anyway, but it's so strange.

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I'll do you one better: I had to create a verified business account just to download software(ladder logic IDE for a sewage pump) from one such site.

I even got a call from a nice, older gentleman who asked me why do I want a business account and could this be avoided somehow. Funny he should ask.

To me it appears that these companies see presence in the web as a necessary evil and would rather do business the old fashioned way: calling and in-person meetings.

Apparently so far they hadn't had any incentive to change.

They haven't seen any incentive to change, but will grumble about Amazon and point to that as the biggest threat to their business. If they aren't, they should be.

I'd rather do business with anyone BUT Amazon, and its telling I still find myself having to order some bits from them every month.

Even though the EU is one market, it really isn't much of a single market due to language and cultural differences. I've helped B2B companies and most small/medium sized ones want to limit their services to their own (and their country's neighbor's) country. There are a ton of problems related to fake company addresses placing orders and having them delivered at some random company's parking lot. Problems with regards to refunds, and –mot important– it is VERY hard to get the police to do anything about it. The minute it is outside of their jurisdiction, the police just doesn't do anything really.

So, maybe only take prepay for orders outside your 'backyard'?

But yeah for areas that are "old fashioned", what B2B has of experience they lack in getting on with the times.

I wonder if it's down to having an opportunity to negotiate the price. It's either that, or things like handling get calculated to fine points - a single screw being more expensive than a box of screws, for example. Shipping is complicated as well. Maybe it's about setting up invoicing accounts as well?

Anyway, lots of barriers, makes you think it's either a requirement that I as a layperson don't understand, or a hole in the market.

That said, what about German electronics parts sites like Conrad or Reichelt?

I mean renovating your house is not B2B so it makes sense they want business registration.

I think they do it because they don't want to bother with small buyers. If people knew how much cheaper the parts are in these companies compared to hobby markets they would all want to buy few pieces to save money. This is not customer they want, they want customers that buy massive quantities.

Minimum order quantities are a standard practice to avoid this problem.

The one that rejected me was a supplier that generally targets larger full construction sites so I totally get it for them. For the rest though, their main audience is definitely normal renovation contractors, and my order sizes are exactly the same as those.

> Yeah what is going on with B2B in Europe and not showing prices?

Is it that much different from SaaS companies that instead of prices show a "contact sales" button?

But most of those have multiple self-serve tiers (maybe even a free one) below the must-call “enterprise” option.

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