E-commerce is short for “electronic commerce”, typically brings the meaning of transacting or facilitating business on the internet. Through E-Commerce, customers are free to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance. Electronic commerce has expanded rapidly over the past five years and is predicted to continue at this rate, or even accelerate. In the near future the boundaries between “conventional” and “electronic” commerce will become increasingly blurred as more and more businesses move sections of their operations onto the Internet. In this topic, we will focus on the types of ecommerce business modules that are available and most commonly practice by business owners.
Business to Consumer (B2C)
Business to consumer is the first type of ecommerce that is also the most common one. It is also known as B2C model. In this type, business owners usually own a personal websites with their desire domain (www.example.com) and online business selling is offered to individual customers.
In the B2C model, business owners have direct interaction with the customers, allowing them to utilise clear data in various marketing tools in order to sell their products to the internet users. The internet users can use the shopping cart for everything they need. Payment is mostly done through credit cards or by payment gateways like the PayPal, iPay88, MolPay, eGHL, etc…
The basic concept of this model is to sell the product online to the consumers.
Business to Business (B2B)
Similar with B2C, website following the business to business models, as known as B2B sells its product to an intermediate buyer who then sells the product to the final customer.
As an example, a wholesaler places an order from a company’s website and after receiving the consignment, sells the end product to final customer who comes to buy the product at wholesaler’s retail outlet.
Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C)
Business to business to consumer or B2B2C, is an e-commerce model that combines business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) for a complete product or service transaction. B2B2C is a collaboration process that, in theory, creates mutually beneficial service and product delivery channels.
Lazada is an example of a B2B2C model, business owners approach Lazada for users, leads or sales generated by Lazada’s business or website. Business owners then uses Lazada’s channels to locate prospective customers. Lazada provides its customers with new and relevant products, facilitating an increased customer base and earned commissions for sold products.
In this case, it is the easiest way for business owners to move their business online. As business owners only need to prepare the goods and list their products on Lazada’s website, views and leads are generated by Lazada which eventually convert to sales and benefits business owners.
Other similar B2B2C business model companies are 11street, Qoo10, Zalora, Fashion Valet, Amazon, eBay.
Consumer To Consumer (C2C)
Consumer to consumer or C2C business model involves transactions between consumers through some third party. A common example is the online auction, in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it; the third party generally charges a flat fee or commission. The sites only act as an intermediaries, which are just there to match consumers.
Besides auction, in recent years, this models have been popular amongst smaller business owners and individuals who wish to sell off second hand products. Emerging platform like Shopee have been dominating the C2C model by providing consumer an easy-to-use platform where consumers can post an item for sale and other consumer buy, vice versa.
The C2C business model is not only a quick way to engage the ecommerce industry, it can also be used widely by almost anyone who own a smart phone.
Other similar C2C platform is Carousel, Mudah, imSold, eBay.
Mobile Commerce (M-commerce)
Mobile commerce or m-commerce, uses mobile devices to carry out online transactions.
In the era of smart phones, web designers and all big or small business owners are trying to optimize their website so they can easily view on you smart phones and to allow the use of this model. In fact, all business model circling the ecommerce industry practices this model as consumers tends to shop much more often through the comfort of scrolling their devices rather than sitting in front of their desktop or laptop.
In short, all the above mentioned platforms and businesses practice this model.
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