To compare costs fairly, you need to factor in all the hidden expenses, not just the initial implementation fee. Every time you update a printed catalog, you have to redesign, print, and ship it again, and the information is never current. Your sales team spends enormous amounts of time answering questions that could be handled through self-service lookup. Staff turnover causes gaps in customer history that are hard to see but costly to the business.
B2B e-commerce is a one-time investment that gives you "7-day, 24-hour automated sales capability"—customers in any time zone can query products and submit inquiries at any time without your sales team being online. In other words, it's like hiring extra sales staff who never need a salary, never get sick, and never take time off.
To see the true return on investment, you need to calculate the savings from reduced printing and shipping costs, the time your sales team recovers from repetitive work, and the faster conversion from inquiry to PO. When you add all of this up, you'll see the real value.