Ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services and making payments over the internet. E-commerce includes B2B, B2C, C2C and C2B. In this blog, we will discuss these business models in details. This division is based on nature of transaction and parties involved therein.
Business-to-Business (B2B)
B2B Ecommerce is trade between the businesses over the internet. One business (seller) is manufacturer and other business (buyer) is distributor or wholesaler. Other way round, wholesaler or manufacturer or distributor sells to retailer. So, B2B is the transaction of sale and purchase between businesses. Like, Alibaba, ECplaza, DHgate, iOffer, Fibre2Fashion, GlobalSources and eWorldTrade etc. are using B2B model.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
B2C Ecommerce model is trade between business and consumer over the internet. For instance, manufacturer or distributor or wholesaler or retailer sells the products to consumer (end user). Hence, B2C is the transaction between business and consumer over the internet. B2C is more profitable than all the other models . Therefore Amazon, AliExpress, Ebay, Etsy, Daraz (in South Asia), Walmart etc are operating on B2C model.
Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
C2C)is another example of ecommerce,. Whereby customers can trade with each other. Like OLX where one consumer sells items to other. C2C operates in two ways i.e. one is auction and through classified advertisements. C2C model is now widely used. Because internet becomes accessible to general public. And emergence of eBay, Etsy, OLX and Craigslist has made C2C possible
Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
C2B is a unique business model. Consumers create values and businesses take advantage of it. Businesses consumes the value that is created. Let say, consumer writes a review on website when purchase is completed. Hence, these reviews provide an insight to businesses. A practical example of C2B is the social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google sell data to the advertisers. This data helps advertisers to find potential customers.
Closing Lines
Whenever, you are making a decision to start your own ecommerce business. You should know which model suits you best. B2B is for wholesaler, distributer and manufacturer. B2C works for retailer. However, wholesaler, distributer and manufacturer are using B2C to sell directly to households and end consumers.
Our blog posts have covered them (Alibaba, ECplaza, DHgate, iOffer, Fibre2Fashion, GlobalSources, eWorldTrade, Amazon, AliExpress, EBay, Etsy, Daraz (in South Asia), Walmart etc.) in details.
