Nobody buys from a seller with no reviews. Here is how you get out of that

A professional weighing up an unknown supplier looks for reassurance, and in the absence of a personal relationship reviews are all they have.

In B2B they weigh more than in consumer purchasing, because a mistake costs more. The wrong material is not a purchase to repeat: it is a cancelled appointment and a patient to call back.

This creates a problem familiar to anyone who has opened an online shop: without reviews no orders arrive, and without orders no reviews arrive.

The way out is not to wait. It is to accept that the first orders must be earned with better terms than you will keep later, and to treat them as an investment rather than a sale.

A discount on the first order works precisely here, because the customer is weighing a risk and you are reducing it. You are not buying a sale: you are buying the chance to be tried.

The first customers should be looked after better than anyone who comes later. Prompt dispatch, clear communication, availability if something goes wrong. These are the people whose opinion will bear on dozens of other decisions.

Asking for a review is legitimate and should be done, but at the right moment: after the product has arrived and been used, not on order confirmation.

A short request explaining why it matters — I am a new seller, your view helps other colleagues decide — gets a response far more often than an automated impersonal one.

Negative reviews will come, and it is where sellers behave worst. The defensive reaction is understandable and always does damage.

Whoever reads a negative review looks above all at the seller's reply. A reply acknowledging the problem and stating what was done is worth more than ten positive reviews, because it shows how you behave when something goes wrong.

A reply that argues with the customer or questions their good faith persuades the reader not to buy, even when the seller is right on the substance.

One isolated negative review among many positive ones does no damage; it makes the others credible. It is the profile with nothing but glowing reviews that makes a professional used to assessing suppliers suspicious.

In summary: in B2B reviews weigh because mistakes cost more, first orders are earned with better terms, the request comes after use and explains why, and the reply to a negative review counts more than the review itself.