Marketing Communications
by OneZeroEight
Oct 28, 2026
5 min read
Picture this. Your product has more features. Your team has deeper experience. Your pricing is competitive.
Yet the buyer chooses someone else.
It's tempting to blame the sales pitch. Or the price. Or a rival's aggressive marketing.
But what if the buyer is no longer judging you by the things you've worked so hard to improve?
That's the real danger of changing buying criteria. A competitor doesn't need to beat you on your strengths if they can make customers care more about something else.
Most businesses compete within familiar rules.
A software company talks about features. A manufacturer highlights product quality. A service firm sells expertise. Everyone tries to score higher on the same checklist.
Then a challenger asks a different question.
What if ease of use matters more than features? What if speed matters more than scale? What if lower risk matters more than a lower price?
Suddenly, the old strengths don't carry the same weight.
This isn't just a clever positioning exercise. Buyer priorities can shift because their business problems change.
Consider EY's Reimagining Industry Futures Study 2026. Among 1,590 enterprises surveyed, 77% said they were reassessing supplier relationships because of a more volatile policy environment. Security also ranked as the most important attribute sought in ICT vendors.
The lesson extends beyond technology: when the risks change, the buying criteria can change with them.
The Buying Criteria Shift: A challenger can reshape competition by changing which attributes customers use to judge value.
“The most dangerous competitor isn't always the one with the better answer. It's the one that changes the question.”
That sounds harsh. But buyers don't purchase a product in isolation.
They purchase what the product helps them achieve, how much effort it takes and what could go wrong along the way.
BCG's 2023 research found that while price was a leading factor for smaller businesses, larger SMBs placed greater importance on reputation, service and availability.
The same product category. Different priorities.
Meanwhile, Deloitte's 2024 B2B commerce research reported that 81% of B2B buyers wanted more self-service and web-based tools.
And Accenture's Client Buying Index found that 65% of buyers felt solution providers could have done more to make purchasing easier.
None of this means quality or price has stopped mattering. It means the buying experience itself can become part of the value.
For a CFO, that might mean fewer hidden costs. For an operations head, less disruption. For a CEO, faster results.
A better specification sheet may not answer any of those concerns.
The razor industry offers a useful example.
For years, major brands competed through product engineering, blade technology and retail presence.
Then Dollar Shave Club entered with a simpler proposition: affordable razors delivered regularly, without the shopping hassle.
The company didn't need to convince customers that subscription delivery made a razor technically superior. It made convenience and the buying model central to the decision.
According to BCG's analysis of Unilever's acquisition, Dollar Shave Club reached 27% of the men's nondisposable razor market by units in 2018. BCG also notes that Gillette reduced prices and launched its own subscription model.
That doesn't prove convenience alone caused the shift. Price, advertising and distribution mattered too.
But it shows how a challenger can make an established category compete on a different basis.
The buying-criteria shift
Old question: Which razor has the best technology?
New question: Why should buying razors take so much effort?
The product still matters. The reason for choosing it has changed.
Here's the awkward part: successful companies are often very good at listening to their current customers.
They improve the features buyers already request. They train sales teams around familiar objections. They build proof around yesterday's winning arguments.
That can create a blind spot.
And challengers face their own hurdle. BCG's 2023 SMB study found that 76% of respondents limited their vendor search to suppliers with whom they already had relationships.
So changing the criteria isn't a magic trick. A challenger still needs trust, access and proof.
But once a new concern enters the buying conversation, incumbents need to notice.
Watch for the questions buyers ask before they sign. Are they asking less about capability and more about setup time? Are procurement teams adding security requirements? Is finance asking about total cost rather than purchase price?
Those questions are early signs that the scorecard may be changing.
McKinsey's 2026 Global B2B Pulse Survey found that buyers use an average of ten channels during the purchasing journey. It also describes seamless interactions across channels as a basic expectation rather than a point of difference.
That's how advantages fade. What once impressed buyers can become something they simply expect.
Before rewriting your positioning, examine the evidence.
Win-loss interviews: What did the chosen supplier make easier, safer or more valuable?
RFPs and procurement questions: Which requirements are appearing more often?
Buyer conversations: What now matters that wasn't on the checklist a year ago?
Then test whether the change affects real decisions, not just survey responses.
A new message won't help if the business can't deliver the promise.
The answer isn't to abandon product quality, expertise or technical depth.
It's to connect those strengths to the outcomes buyers now care about.
That may mean showing how a complex product reduces risk. How a service shortens the path to results. Or how a brand makes a difficult decision feel more certain.
For founders and business leaders, this is as much a strategy question as a marketing one. What are customers using to judge value now? And what might they use tomorrow?
At OneZeroEight, there's a belief behind the work: we don't make art; we make answers. But the quality of an answer depends on whether you're solving the right question.
Your most dangerous competitor may not build a better version of what you sell.
They may persuade the market to value something different.
And by the time you notice, you could be winning an argument your customers have already left behind.
What are buying criteria in B2B marketing?
Buying criteria are the factors customers use to compare suppliers, such as price, performance, reliability, ease of use, security, service and business outcomes.
How can a competitor change buying criteria?
By addressing an overlooked customer problem and proving that a different factor—such as convenience, speed or lower risk—deserves more weight in the purchase decision.
How can a company respond when buying criteria change?
Study recent wins and losses, track changes in procurement requirements, interview buyers and update the value proposition only when the business can support it with evidence.
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