Why do customers support value-based selling? Understanding customer receptiveness, its antecedents and facilitating conditions

Value-based selling (VBS) is becoming a critical practice for business-to-business (B2B) companies due to its influence on increasing profitability. However, the literature is silent about the customer perspective on the VBS adoption process. While B2B research advocates for firms focusing on the actual value offered by suppliers, the understanding of specific antecedents that foster a customer's receptiveness to VBS is limited. We argue that the absence of the customer view on moving VBS adoption forward is a critical gap. Receptiveness to VBS − as a new construct − followed both qualitative and quantitative validation. Based on an empirical study of 207 purchasing managers, our results indicate that a customer's long-term orientation in ongoing relationships increases their propensity to support VBS strategies, and that this orientation requires the cultivation of different antecedents such as communication, cultural similarity, goal congruence and supplier reputation. Furthermore, trust and customer satisfaction work as boundary conditions for the long-term orientation effect on receptiveness to VBS. Overall, our study contributes to the VBS literature by identifying specific relational elements necessary for VBS to succeed from the customer perspective.