I watched Spice and Wolf II (and the first one) with the same mindset I watched Bakemonogatari - it was for the character interaction and dialogue between the two main characters, in this case Horo and Lawrence.
However, the level of dialgoue interest was beaten imo by bakemonogatari, which I watched side by side. However, I still did find the merchanting theme/plot/atmosphere still interesting. I do agree that the first arc was better than the second, but the last episode was rather sweet and also hinted that there will be another season
.
Overall, I found it just as good as the first season. Pretty much the same Spice and Wolf as the first season minus the wolf transformation elements (which I didn't really like anyway).
8.5-9/10