Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model of e-commerce

In contrast to a B2B model, a business-to-consumer (B2C) model has final consumers as customers.

B2C e-commerce often referred to as e-tailing, is about marketing and selling to individual consumers online. Consequently, B2C e-commerce is about mass marketing.

In the traditional retail setting, customers generally approach a business location (a brick-and-mortar store) with the intent of shopping or purchasing. Alternatively, customers might purchase via telephone or mail order.

E-commerce applications that focus on the consumer share an important goal: to attract potential buyer, transact goods, and services, and build consumer loyalty through individual courteous treatment and engaging community features.

Alibaba.com

On the Internet the barriers of time, distance and form are broken down, and businesses are able to transact the sale of goods and services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with consumers all over the world.

Amazon.com represents the classic B2C firm, which is directly focused on individual final consumers. B2C ventures are extremely diverse in the products they sell, with offering ranging from clothing to pet, items, computer software, toys and groceries.

In certain cases, it is even possible to convert physical goods (CDs, packaged software, a newspaper) to a virtual good (MP3 audio, downloadable software, information in HTML format).
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model of e-commerce

Business Value of the Intranet: Publication Cost Savings

Many companies have derived business value from their intranet applications. Intranets dramatically reduce the costs and time of content development, duplication, distribution and usage.

The intranet publishing model includes a much shorter process, skipping many of the steps involved in the traditional publication model. Intranet using companies report cost reductions, revenue increases or other benefits after they replaced traditional methods of accomplishing information publishing and other business processes with intranet based methods.

Elimination of printing, mailing and distribution of paper documents with electronic multimedia versions on intranet:
*Telephone directories
*Hunan resource materials
*Other paper-based communication
*Newsletter
*Company policies
*Job openings

Companies that use web technology to distribute documents may experience momentous gains in productivity and incredible cost savings.

Like the reengineering craze that has marked the other half of the client/server revolution, converting many paper-based systems to web systems can save both labor and over head costs within an organization.

In the intranet model, revision becomes part of the updating process while the original content is available to end user thus dramatically reducing the time it takes for the information to become available to the user.  
Business Value of the Intranet: Publication Cost Savings

B2B: Vertical markets

Business to business or B2B, e-business models take a variety of forms. B2B marketplaces can be classified as vertical or horizontal. Vertical markets are industry specific.

A vertical market is a specific industry in which similar products or services are developed and sold using similar methods. They are well suited to sell direct goods that are incorporated into the final product or offered for resale items that tend to be industry specific.

E-commerce solutions in this category most frequently address the inefficiencies within a given industry, and hundreds of vertical market makers have already emerged in highly scattered, highly populated industries.

Examples of broad vertical markets include insurance, real estate, banking, heavy manufacturing and transportation.
B2B: Vertical markets

What is C2C business model?

The consumer to consumer (C2C) business model – sometimes referred to as the person-to-person (P2P) model to involves individuals selling directly to other individuals. Consumer sells directly classified ads and auctions or by selling personal services or expertise online.

This model will brings individual buyers and sellers together in an online marketspace, generates revenue in several ways, including transaction fees, sales commission, subscriptions, or membership fees and personal ad fees.

C2C businesses, such as eBay, offer the auction services and generate revenue from listing fees, sales commissions and advertising.

Typically C2C transactions are carried out via intermediary web sites set up to facilities this.

C2C transactions can also take pace via craft marketplaces like etsy and via social media and personal web pages.

In C2C business model, although there may be no financial transaction, there is still an exchange of value and these are economic activities and could be referred to as peer-to-peer.

Blogs for example have led to the development of news C2B and C2C application by presenting the opportunity and tools for virtually anyone to express their views easily and to communicate these globally and inexpensively.
What is C2C business model?