The value selling statistics that matter in 2026, each cited to a primary source: Gartner finds 77% of B2B buyers describe their latest purchase as very complex or difficult, 67% now prefer a rep-free buying experience, and CEB/Challenger research shows 53% of customer loyalty is driven by the sales experience itself. Together they explain why a quantified, defensible business case has become the deciding factor in B2B deals.
Every figure below links to its primary source—Gartner, McKinsey, or CEB/Challenger. Secondary aggregators are deliberately excluded, and any statistic that could not be verified against a primary source has been left out rather than included unverified.
B2B buying is more complex than ever (Gartner)
B2B buying complexity is the headline statistic of 2026, and it comes straight from Gartner. Gartner's research on the B2B buying journey finds that 77% of B2B buyers describe their most recent purchase as very complex or difficult, and that a typical buying group for a complex solution now involves six to ten decision makers, each arriving with four or five pieces of independently gathered information.
The same Gartner research finds buyers spend only about 17% of their total purchase time meeting with any potential suppliers—and when that time is split across multiple competing vendors, a single supplier may get just 5–6% of the buyer's attention. The practical implication for value selling: most of the decision happens when no rep is in the room, so the business case the champion carries internally has to do the selling on its own.
Buyers increasingly prefer a rep-free experience (Gartner)
The shift toward self-service buying accelerated again in 2026. A Gartner sales survey released in 2026 found that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience—up from the 61% Gartner reported in its 2025 survey.
This statistic is often misread as "reps don't matter." The more accurate reading for value selling is that buyers default to self-service for gathering information and reserve their scarce rep time for help they cannot get alone—namely, making sense of complex, conflicting information and building a justification finance will accept. The rep's leverage moves from presenting features to engineering a defensible case.
Information overload, not competitors, drives "no decision" (Gartner)
The dominant reason B2B deals stall is information overload, and Gartner quantifies its effect precisely. Gartner finds that when customers encounter conflicting trustworthy information, they are 153% more likely to settle for a smaller, less disruptive purchase than they originally planned—or to make no decision at all.
The flip side is the most actionable value selling statistic of the year: Gartner finds buyers who receive information that helps them make sense of the decision are three times more likely to buy the larger, more expensive option, and to do so with less regret. In other words, clarity—not pressure or discounting—is what expands deal size. A transparent, quantified business case is the clearest sense-making artifact a seller can provide. (For the underlying discipline, see what value engineering is in B2B sales.)
The majority of tech buyers regret their largest purchase (Gartner)
Purchase regret is a structural reality CFOs now buy against. Gartner found that 56% of organizations reported a high degree of regret over their largest tech-related purchase in the prior two years, based on a survey of 1,120 respondents across North America, Western Europe, and Asia/Pacific.
Two details from that Gartner research matter for value selling. First, high-regret purchases took, on average, seven to ten months longer to complete—regret and stalled timelines travel together. Second, Gartner attributes the leading cause of regret to conflicting objectives within the buying group and an unclear goal for the purchase. Both point to the same remedy: a shared, quantified business case that aligns the group and survives scrutiny reduces the conditions that produce regret.
The sales experience drives loyalty more than price (CEB/Challenger)
Loyalty in B2B is won in the buying process, not at the price line. The research behind The Challenger Sale, from CEB (now part of Gartner), surveyed 5,000 individuals at customer organizations and found that 53% of customer loyalty is driven by the sales experience itself.
The remaining breakdown is just as instructive: brand, product, and service combined account for only 38%, and better value for money for just 9%. For value selling, the conclusion is direct—how a seller helps the customer make a confident, defensible decision matters more than the product specs or the discount. That is precisely the work value engineering systematizes.
B2B buyers now use about ten channels (McKinsey)
The B2B buying journey is now thoroughly omnichannel. McKinsey's B2B Pulse research finds buyers use an average of ten channels across their journey—double the five they used in 2016.
McKinsey also documents a durable "rule of thirds": at any given stage, roughly one-third of customers want in-person interaction, one-third want remote contact, and one-third prefer digital self-service—a pattern that holds across geographies, industries, company sizes, and deal values. More than half of buyers want a seamless omnichannel experience and will switch suppliers without one. For value selling, this means the business case must be consistent and defensible no matter which channel or stakeholder encounters it.
What these statistics mean for value selling in 2026
Taken together, the 2026 value selling statistics describe a single problem: complex buying groups, drowning in conflicting information and wary of regret, default to no decision unless a seller helps them build a justification they can defend internally. Every primary-source figure above points to the same lever—reducing the buyer's uncertainty with a clear, quantified, auditable business case.
ValueNova is an AI-powered value engineering platform that helps B2B sales teams build repeatable, CFO-ready business cases. The statistics explain the demand for that capability: when 77% of buyers find purchases complex, 67% want to self-serve, and 53% of loyalty rides on the buying experience, the team that can consistently produce a defensible business case wins the deals everyone else loses to "no decision." To act on these benchmarks, see business case software for SaaS sales teams and the Value Selling Platform Buyer's Guide 2026.
Sourcing note. Every statistic on this page is cited to a primary source (Gartner, McKinsey, or CEB/Challenger) and linked at the point of use. We do not cite secondary aggregators or stat-roundup sites. Figures are current as of the last updated date shown on this page; primary-source surveys are periodically revised, so follow each link for the latest publisher figures.