Many B2B distributors know the frustration of hearing a customer say: “I couldn’t find what I needed on your site, so I just called my rep instead.”

It’s not that your ecommerce platform doesn’t work. The problem is that your customers’ needs,  their Jobs To Be Done (JTBD),  aren’t what your website was designed to solve.

Too often, distributors treat ecommerce as a digital catalog or a place to park transactions. But for your buyers, that’s not the “job” they hired your website to do.

When you start using JTBD not just as a concept, but as a framework, you gain a new lens for transforming your website into a tool that drives adoption, loyalty, and growth.

JTBD is a way of understanding what customers are trying to accomplish when they engage with you. Instead of asking:

• What products do they buy?
• What features do they want?

You ask:

• What progress are they trying to make in their work or business?
• What circumstances drive them to turn to you instead of someone else?

For a B2B buyer, the job isn’t “order 25 cases of gloves.” The job might be:

• Keep my hospital fully stocked without interruptions
• Find a compliant, cost-effective option my procurement manager will approve
• Reorder quickly so my team can focus on patient care instead of paperwork

When you uncover these jobs, you start to see your website in an entirely different way.

Here’s where many distributors miss out: they think of JTBD as a customer research tool, when in fact it can serve as a framework for transforming digital experiences.

Let’s break down what that looks like:

1. Designing Workflows That Match Buyer Context

B2B buyers aren’t shopping casually. They’re often under pressure, managing budgets, compliance, or production schedules.

JTBD helps you identify these contexts so you can:

• Streamline reordering for supply buyers who repeat the same purchase monthly.
• Build configuration tools for equipment buyers making infrequent, high-stakes decisions.
• Offer approval workflows for procurement teams who need documentation before ordering.

Each job points you to design choices that remove friction and create loyalty.

2. Reframing Site Navigation Around Jobs

Most websites are organized around product categories. That works if your buyer already knows exactly what they want. But what if their job is to compare solutions or educate a new staff member?

A JTBD lens encourages you to:

• Create pathways like “Solve by Need” or “Shop by Industry” in addition to traditional categories.
• Add content that supports research and evaluation jobs, not just transactions.
• Make tasks like “repeat my last order” or “share a quote with my manager” just as visible as browsing SKUs.

3. Prioritizing Development and Investment

One of the hardest challenges in digital commerce is deciding what to fix first.

Should you improve site search? Add personalized recommendations? Upgrade your mobile experience?

When you apply JTBD as a framework, you prioritize by asking:

• Which jobs are most critical to my buyers’ success?
• Which jobs, if solved, would set my site apart from competitors?
• Which jobs currently create the most frustration?

This ensures your roadmap isn’t driven by the loudest voice in the room, but by customer outcomes that matter.

Imagine a foodservice distributor. Their ecommerce site is structured around product categories like “Plastics” and “Paper Goods.” A restaurant manager trying to stock up quickly before a busy weekend has to click through multiple categories, search by brand, and double-check quantities.

The job isn’t “find plates.” The job is: “Restock my front-of-house supplies in under 10 minutes so I can get back to service.”

By applying JTBD, the distributor might:

• Add a “Restock Essentials” feature that builds a cart based on past orders.
• Offer quick reorder templates by location.
• Create a “supply checklist” that helps managers avoid last-minute shortages.

The result? The buyer feels like the site was built to make their life easier  and they’ll keep coming back.

If you’re ready to use JTBD as a website transformation framework, here’s where to begin:

• Interview Your Customers. Ask them what they were trying to get done the last time they used your site. Listen for functional, emotional, and social jobs.
• Map Jobs to Digital Touchpoints. Identify where each job succeeds or breaks down on your current site.
• Prioritize by Impact. Focus first on jobs that affect customer adoption and revenue.
• Redesign Workflows, Not Just Pages. Remember — your site is a tool for getting jobs done, not just a digital shelf.
• Measure Job Success. Don’t just track clicks or conversions. Ask: Did the customer accomplish the job they came to do?

JTBD isn’t just another customer research acronym. It’s a practical framework that helps you design, prioritize, and measure your ecommerce site around the real work your customers are trying to accomplish.

When you stop treating your website as a catalog and start treating it as a job-solving platform, you’ll transform not just the site, but the way your customers view your business.