In Sweden, B2B ecommerce is being rebuilt for faster ordering, smarter payments, and digital-first solutions. Procurement teams tend to want the same speed and clarity they get from retail sites. Sellers are either catching up or falling behind. Below, we’ll discuss what’s changing and what businesses should be building now.

What’s in this article?

• What is B2B ecommerce and how does it work?
  
• How is B2B different from B2C in ecommerce?
  
• How is B2B ecommerce changing in Sweden?
  
• Why should Swedish companies invest in B2B ecommerce?
  
• What payment methods do Swedish B2B buyers prefer?
  
• How can businesses simplify B2B ecommerce payments?
  
• How do you prevent fraud in B2B ecommerce?
  
• How Stripe Checkout can help
  

What is B2B ecommerce and how does it work?

B2B ecommerce is how businesses buy from and sell to each other online. The entire transaction from product discovery to payment happens digitally, without involving phone calls, emailed PDFs, or in-person meetings.

The process typically looks like this:

• Buyers log in to a portal to browse products, view custom pricing, and check stock levels.

• They place orders themselves, often opting to repeat or schedule them, without needing a rep to help.

• The system connects directly to inventory, billing, and fulfillment systems. Orders go straight into the workflow.

• Payments happen online, either up front or via digital invoicing with agreed terms.

It’s designed to make repeat purchasing easier and more accurate, and to give B2B buyers the control and visibility they’ve come to expect from ecommerce. Sales teams still play a role, especially for more complex purchases, but the manual, transactional parts are automated.

How is B2B different from B2C in ecommerce?

A B2B site can look a lot like a B2C storefront. But behind the scenes, it’s built to accommodate a different set of behaviors, expectations, and internal workflows.

Here’s how the two diverge:

• Purchasing behavior: In B2C, one person is making a decision and it’s often driven by impulse. In B2B, multiple stakeholders are involved in long buying cycles. Repeat orders are tied to a business’s needs, not personal desires.

• Pricing and terms: In B2C, prices are fixed and the same for everyone. B2B sites enable custom pricing, negotiated contracts, and volume discounts, and they have to display the right numbers to the right buyer.

• Checkout process: B2C customers typically pay at the time of purchase. B2B customers often pay later, usually via an invoice with terms of net 30 or net 60.

• Delivery: B2C buyers tend to expect fast, flexible shipping to their homes. B2B buyers require precise delivery to warehouses or retail locations, sometimes on pallets or with freight coordination.

• Support model: B2C shoppers need basic customer service. B2B buyers need account managers, technical sales support, and long-term business relationships.

In B2B, buyers need tools that reflect how their businesses operate, with features such as multiuser logins, order approval flows, invoice tracking, and shipping preferences that don’t just default to “standard delivery.”

How is B2B ecommerce changing in Sweden?

Sweden has been steadily modernizing its B2B sales infrastructure. It’s shifting from emailed purchase orders and in-person relationships to customer portals, self-serve reordering, and fully digital workflows.

A 2025 report found that 83% of Nordic B2B companies use digital channels—whether that’s online catalogs, customer portals, or full ecommerce sites—and 28% of B2B sales in the region happen through digital channels. What’s more, 69% of B2B firms said they expect their digital sales to continue increasing.

Companies are redesigning the experience around what modern buyers actually want, which includes:

• Real-time stock levels

• Personalized dashboards

• Mobile ordering

• Hybrid workflows that blend self-service with human support

• AI tools for product recommendations or order assistance

Even sectors such as manufacturing and wholesale, once slower to adopt digital sales, are now building platforms that mirror the simplicity of retail shopping. Swedish firms have often been early adopters of tech, and B2B ecommerce is the next logical step in how they expect to do business.

Why should Swedish companies invest in B2B ecommerce?

Sweden already has the digital infrastructure to support B2B ecommerce: nearly universal BankID adoption, cashless payments, and a buyer base that’s used to doing everything online. If your company isn’t offering a fast, easy way to order online, you could be losing business to a competitor that does. Here’s why the shift can’t wait.

It’s more efficient for everyone

Digital ordering reduces manual entry, minimizes fulfillment errors, and frees up sales teams to focus on actual selling. It also saves the customer time by eliminating the back-and-forth needed to make purchases over email or the phone. It’s a win-win solution.

It lets you scale without additional overhead

A well-designed B2B ecommerce platform lets you:

• Serve more customers without hiring

• Sell to buyers in new regions (without sending reps there)

• Be available 24/7, even when your team’s offline

It gives you better data

Every online interaction offers insight into what buyers are searching for, when they reorder, and which products they ignore. These data points help you fine-tune pricing, forecast demand, and spot missed opportunities.

It future-proofs the business

Building the infrastructure now means you’ll be ready for what comes next, whether that’s AI-powered quotes, embedded financing, or deeper integrations with customer systems. No matter what the future brings, you’ll need a digital system in place.

What payment methods do Swedish B2B buyers prefer?

Payments in Sweden are almost entirely digital, but B2B payments are characterized by their pacing and preferences. Buyers still lean on traditional invoice terms, but the mechanics of how they pay and what they expect from the process are modernizing. Here are the most common payment methods.

Bank transfer

Many B2B buyers pay by bank transfer (usually via Bankgirot or PlusGirot). Recurring payments often use Autogiro (Sweden’s direct debit system), especially for subscriptions or scheduled orders.

If you’re not offering bank transfers at checkout, you’re missing a method some buyers consider nonnegotiable.

Card payments

Card payments are the most common payment method in Sweden overall, and corporate credit and debit cards are also popular in B2B.

This is especially true in paying for:

• Software and digital services

• Smaller, lower-risk purchases

• One-off or urgent orders

Swedish buyers are accustomed to using cards in everyday life and use them at work, particularly in tech, services, and smaller teams.

Swish

Swish, Sweden’s popular mobile payment system, isn’t just for personal use. In B2B, it’s used in microbusiness transactions, on-the-spot payments, and simple service purchases.

It’s fast, final, and easy to reconcile. But it does have transfer limits, and it’s not ideal for larger invoices.

Other methods

Direct bank payments via open banking application programming interfaces (APIs) are becoming more accessible, particularly through integrated ecommerce platforms. Wire transfers (i.e., SWIFT) are also still used for cross-border transactions.

A modern B2B checkout in Sweden should support all of the above methods to create flexibility and get you paid faster. The more options you offer, the more buyers you can accommodate.

How can businesses simplify B2B ecommerce payments?

Swedish businesses have the tools to make B2B transactions faster and easier to manage without giving up control. Here’s what works.

Automate the invoicing flow

Digital invoicing minimizes manual errors and administrative overhead.

You can:

• Set it up to automatically create invoices when an order ships

• Include a “pay now” button that links to a secure portal

• Let the system send reminders, track due dates, and log payments

These automations alone can shorten your payment cycle by weeks.

Make it easy to pay instantly

When you include payment links in your invoices, customers can pay by card or bank transfer without leaving their inboxes. Payments automatically match to open invoices so there’s no manual reconciliation later. It’s one of the fastest ways to improve cash flow.

Connect your systems

When your ecommerce site, accounting software, and bank account can actually talk to each other, you’ll stop losing time to duplicate work. You can set up orders to create invoices, payments to create records in real time, and dashboards that show what’s been paid, what’s outstanding, and what needs follow-up.

Use direct debit for repeat buyers

If you have regular customers who place recurring orders, set up Autogiro. It allows you to get paid on schedule, automatically, and your customer won’t have to process payments every month. It’s great for subscriptions, restocking agreements, and any other predictable flows.

Spot the trends in your payment data

Use your accounts receivable insight to flag late payers before they become problems, offer early payment incentives to collect payment sooner, or proactively suggest direct debit or card on file for habitual late payers. Use the patterns you’ve already documented to make smarter calls.

The goals are to get paid with less effort, make fewer mistakes, and improve the customer experience. In Sweden’s already digitized environment, these can be easy wins.

How do you prevent fraud in B2B ecommerce?

B2B fraud tends to involve large orders from fake companies, new buyers that vanish after you invoice them, or subtle manipulations that slip past manual checks. As more Swedish businesses move sales online, the risk of fraud increases. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Always verify new buyers

Before you approve large first-time orders, take these steps:

• Look up the company in Allabolag or the Swedish Companies Registration Office.

• Confirm value-added tax (VAT) numbers and delivery addresses.

• Ensure the shipping location makes sense for the business.

A common scam is identity spoofing: fraudulent actors pose as legitimate companies with convincing-looking emails and real business names but reroute delivery or payment.

Watch for common warning signs

Fraud tends to follow a script.

Look for:

• Big orders from new customers, especially for items with high resale value

• Multiple orders placed in quick succession from a brand-new account

• New delivery addresses that aren’t tied to known business locations

When you spot these warning signs, pause before you complete the transaction. Set up your system to flag orders that aren’t typical for your customer base.

Use fraud detection tools

B2B platforms can layer in real-time fraud detection measures, including:

• Internet protocol (IP) address and location checks

• Order velocity limits

• Block lists or automated approval rules

Using a payment processor with built-in screening is helpful here. If you’re issuing invoices, treat credit approval as seriously as a bank would.

Know whom you’re extending credit to

Offering invoice terms means taking on short-term credit risk. Customize your credit policies to the customer’s size, history, and the value of the order.

For new or high-value buyers, perform these checks:

• Pull a business credit report through UC or another credit reference agency.

• Set initial limits and tighten up your payment terms until the relationship is established.

• Ask for up-front payment if anything feels off.

Lock down your own systems

Account takeovers are a common issue in B2B, particularly with multiuser access. Require strong passwords and two-factor authentication on your buyer logins, and monitor changes to bank account details—these are a common entry point for business email compromise scams. Keep everything up-to-date, from your platform software to your customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Train your team to catch suspicious activity

A human review often catches fraud. Ensure your ops and sales teams know what suspicious behavior looks like and when to escalate. They should always feel comfortable delaying an order to verify a buyer.

Digital sales increase reach and efficiency, but they also make you vulnerable to new fraud patterns. You need a baseline system and a team that knows when to ask more questions.

How Stripe Checkout can help

Stripe Checkout is a fully customizable, prebuilt payment form that makes it easy for you to accept payments on your website or application.

Checkout can help you:

• Increase conversions: Checkout’s mobile-first design and one-click checkout flow make it simple for customers to input and reuse their payment information.

• Reduce development time: Embed Checkout directly into your site, or direct customers to a Stripe-hosted page, with just a few lines of code.

• Improve security: Checkout handles sensitive card data, simplifying PCI compliance.

• Expand globally: Localize pricing in 100+ currencies with Adaptive Pricing, which supports 30+ languages and dynamically displays the payment methods most likely to improve conversion.

• Use advanced features: Integrate Checkout with other Stripe products, such as Billing for subscriptions, Radar for fraud prevention, and more.

• Maintain control: Fully customize the checkout experience, including saving payment methods and setting up post-purchase actions.

Learn more about how Checkout can refine your payment flow, or get started today.