Søren Handlos on Rethinking Punchout, Owning the Digital Customer Relationship, and Bringing Full eCommerce Into Procurement Systems

From Danish TV to Punchout

Handlos started in advertising, moved into the media side of the early internet at a Danish TV station, and then built a commerce department inside a telecom company in the early 2000s, selling broadband and hardware packages to business and consumer customers. He later became a consultant, advising large B2B and B2C companies on commerce platforms.

Nearly ten years ago, a large B2B customer in Sweden asked his team for punchout ordering, and the team had to learn what it was. The usual approach was a standalone punchout catalog that replicated the seller’s data. Handlos’s team chose a different route: enable punchout directly on the commerce platform the customer already had. Later, he and his co-founder Henrik bought the solution out and started Shopspray.

Where B2B Buying Starts Today

Hein, who set up punchout catalogs for customers at a distributor about 26 years ago, raised the worry many sellers share: if buyers shop inside a procurement system, what happens to the investment in a seller’s own website? Handlos reframed the question.

Modern day B2B purchasing starts in procurement systems today.
— Søren Handlos, Co-founder, Shopspray

The journey begins and ends there, he said, but in between the buyer needs to see the right products at the right prices. His answer is to connect the procurement system directly to the seller’s commerce platform, which already holds the business logic: customer-specific catalogs, contract pricing, CRM connections, and configured products. For a closer look at how these systems fit together, see B2BEA’s guide to the systems that power B2B commerce, and Digital Commerce 360’s reporting on why B2B companies are integrating ERP and eCommerce technology.

Reuse the Experience You Already Built

Procurement systems were never designed to carry custom pricing rules, configured products, or delivery windows such as a truck arriving between one and three in the morning. Handlos argued that copying that logic into a third-party catalog creates cost and complexity.

You own the experience on your commerce platform.
— Søren Handlos

He called the extra cost of duplicating it “an integration premium,” and Hein put the same idea in a question.

Why turn each of your customers into its own silo and have to rebuild that functionality in each one of them?
— Jason Hein, B2B eCommerce Association

The Digital Customer Relationship Is B2B’s Gold

The conversation turned to relationships, which sellers often call their most important asset. Handlos asked Hein to picture an offline version: would a seller want a person standing between them and their client?

You want the direct relationship with your client. It’s your client.
— Søren Handlos

In a digital setting, he said, a middle layer can expose purchase data and the connections a seller has built inside a customer’s company. He sees that as an unnecessary risk and described the digital customer relationship in memorable terms.

It’s the B2B’s gold. It’s the relationship with your customers.
— Søren Handlos

Hein added that a digital relationship works the way a personal one does: each time a customer asks a question and gets a useful answer, the relationship grows. Harvard Business Review’s piece on healthier B2B relationships looks at how companies can measure and improve the health of those relationships.

Orchestrating Channels, Not Choosing Between Them

Handlos described a market where customers differ widely in digital maturity. Adoption is high in Scandinavia and uneven across the rest of Europe, and he cited Germany as an example of lower digital maturity. A seller has to serve all of them.

It’s never a question of choosing channel. It’s about orchestrating the channels that are relevant to your customers.
— Søren Handlos

That means electronic data interchange (EDI, the server-to-server exchange of orders and documents), punchout, a direct login to the seller’s web store, and offline sales together. He said EDI is here to stay.

It will never be irrelevant.
— Søren Handlos

Some customers use both EDI and punchout for different product categories or branches. Demand often arrives from outside, such as a strategic customer who wants to order by punchout or a public tender that requires it, but a growing number of sellers are building the channel in advance. Handlos has also seen sales reps use punchout to connect their own clients. Companies that do this well tend to have sales, marketing, eCommerce, and IT teams working together, the kind of cross-team alignment B2BEA has explored in its conversation on sales and marketing alignment that grows B2B eCommerce. Hein noted that a customer who wants to order from a phone at three in the morning will move to whichever supplier supports their preferred channel. B2BEA’s conversation with David Blue on why commerce is bigger than checkout makes the same point: orders still arrive through sales reps, EDI, and portals, not just the storefront.

What “Amazon-Like” Really Means in B2B

Hein raised a phrase that gets repeated at many conferences: customers want an Amazon-like experience. In B2B, he said, it comes down to one idea.

It’s just an experience that works.
— Jason Hein

Handlos agreed, and he pointed to what is at stake. A wrong order can stop a production line, delay a construction site, or leave a hospital without protective equipment. Simple is good, he said, but relevance matters more.

Make it hassle-free. Make it personalized.
— Søren Handlos

He has also seen the opposite, where a buyer builds a list of order lines, sends a PDF, waits for the supplier to confirm, and emails back, all while several systems talk behind the scenes. A good ordering experience removes those steps for the buyer without removing the complexity that B2B products require. Forrester’s analysis of zero-click B2B buying found that 94 percent of business buyers now use AI in their buying process, which raises the bar for every channel a seller offers.

From eCommerce Sites to Customer Portals

Handlos sees B2B sites in Scandinavia moving beyond storefronts toward customer portals, where a buyer is greeted as a specific person, can reach customer service or an AI agent, and can connect through punchout. Shopspray uses AI inside its own product, he said, to bring a new punchout customer online faster, moving from days to hours to minutes. The company is not a storefront builder.

We see our product as something that enables our customers to handle PunchOut by themselves.
— Søren Handlos

His goal is for sellers to onboard punchout customers on their own, so the less his team hears from customers, the better. Handlos also noted that EDI and AI are a good match. That fits the wider direction of enterprise software: Gartner predicts that 40 percent of enterprise applications will feature task-specific AI agents by 2026, up from less than 5 percent in 2025.

What to Do Tomorrow Morning

Hein closed with a practical question for a distributor that believes punchout is already solved. Handlos suggested a rethink. Sellers should ask what their buyers’ punchout experience would look like if it carried the full eCommerce experience, with personalized pricing and live stock, in place of a scaled-down catalog based on yesterday’s data. He has a name for that approach.

We want to see it as the flip side of B2B Commerce.
— Søren Handlos

That mindset treats punchout as an integrated sales channel and part of the tech stack, not a task imposed by a customer. For sellers weighing how a platform supports channels like this, B2BEA’s guide to selecting a B2B eCommerce platform is a useful starting point.

About the Guest

Søren Handlos, Co-founder, Shopspray

Søren Handlos is the co-founder of Shopspray, a SaaS company helping manufacturers and distributors create more connected and efficient B2B purchasing experiences. He has extensive expertise in B2B eCommerce, digital procurement, punchout technology, and the integration of suppliers with their customers’ purchasing systems. Søren is passionate about helping B2B organizations bridge the digital commerce gap, strengthen customer relationships, and prepare for the next generation of AI-driven commerce. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

About the Host

Jason Hein is Vice President of B2BEA Academy and Global Director of Programming for B2B eCommerce World at the B2B eCommerce Association, where he builds and scales the association’s practitioner education offerings and leads the development of conference programming across B2B eCommerce World events in APAC, the Americas, and Europe. He also hosts the B2B eCommerce Show, where he talks with practitioners and technology leaders shaping how manufacturers and distributors sell online. With nearly 30 years of experience in B2B eCommerce, he also runs his own consulting practice, Acumental B2B, helping companies fix underperforming B2B sites.