Overall, the buying outlook remains positive considering the current conversation around the economic outlook, with 51% of the respondents believing that spending on software is set to increase in 2023, while 40% expect it to remain the same, up 4 points from last year. Disjointed trust convolutes the buying process The adage “trust is earned, not given” seems more relevant than ever in the software world. Despite their efforts to be more customer centric, software sellers don’t always seem to know what buyers want or need very well. As a result, buyers may choose to bypass vendors and choose self-service options for software selection. Vendors are not the only ones helping buyers with software purchasing. There are analysts, experts, peers, and review websites, but buyers worry that vendors may influence these, negatively impacting their credibility. Other than vendor influence, these information sources may be disconnected and even provide contradictory data, which muddles the buying process. We asked software buyers what information sources they use when planning to purchase software, which ones are the most influential, and the main obstacles they face when buying software. Buyers have mixed feelings about vendors and sales When planning to buy software, companies rely mainly on the vendor website (60%), internal supplier portals (43%), and salespersons at the software company (40%). Compared to 2021, a vendor’s website and its sales teams’ importance declined by 5 and 4 percentage points, respectively, while reviews websites gained 5%. At the same time, more than 60% of buyers agree and strongly agree that vendor sales aren’t involved in the research phase. Also, buyers want sales to proactively engage earlier (75% agree and strongly agree) in the purchasing process, but they only involve sales at the last stage (68%). This is explained by a lack of trust in sales and the fact that they tend to be reactive instead of proactive, which may force buyers to adopt self-service alternatives like reviews websites. 2022 G2 Software Buyer Behavior Report 9