B2B

Business to Business
B2B is the selling between companies, wholesale rather than retail. But it means more
than that. Efficient use of capital demands small inventories, which entails anticipating
demand, and so maintaining detailed information flows between all parties involved in
today's complex manufacturing processes. B2B involves widening the circle of suppliers
(for safety and competition), and of centralizing control (for records and discounts).

B2B ecommerce is an important part of any online business. Leaving aside the simple
transfer of funds — covered here — many businesses need some combination of:

Credit worthiness assessment.

Guarantee of quality and delivery of goods (escrow services).
Safeguards against fraud.
Fast collection of funds, with ability to vary the collection period.
Reporting: approval of sale, invoicing, delivery, payment.
Procedures to handle disputes.
Information of all types — corporate, technical, identity-building — has to be
interchanged across the scattered divisions of large companies, and new ideas fostered,
assessed and disseminated. Speed is vital, as are improved communication, collaboration,
and customer understanding. All these requirements can be handled by IT, and software
has been developed to meet the challenge — customer relationship management,
enterprise resource planning, online auction, supply chain management, etc. Little of it is
off-the-shelf, but is devised as systems to be extended and built round individual
company requirements.
Hence many problems with surveys. B2B has reportedly done better than B2C — steadier
growth, higher profits — but is it software sales or savings in companies with B2B-
enhanced management that have been measured? Even within the B2B market, there are
marked differences between types of software and their successes. Records of some are
distinctly spotty, and sales of the more advanced systems have been badly hit by the
dotcom bust and US recession. Improved management is not simply a matter of installing
new software: extensive company reorganization and retraining are required to obtain
even a modest payoff. These points need to be borne in mind when following up the
information briefly noted below.
B2C
Business to Consumer
B2C (Business to Consumer): Refers to a business communicating with or selling to an
individual rather than a company.

Doing business online no longer requires a huge investment by retailers, thanks to

developments in template-based online stores which are based on packaged applications
that are delivered over the internet.

As nearly all online stores will require the same functions: catalogues, order baskets,
payment processing, content management and member management, it makes sense for
those components to be created once and shared by all stores, with each store effectively
‘renting’ its own copy of the applications.

The one area where it's important for online stores to differentiate is their look and feel,
and naturally retailers feel very strongly about their business branding. So the ability to
create a unique ‘skin’ for each site is an important part of a template-based e-store
offering.

Using the latest internet application technology, individual sites can be created within
minutes of the retailer selecting a template and supplying graphics such as logos.
Typically, retailers will pay only a modest monthly rental charge – and retailers require
no specialist hardware or software, other than internet access.

Anyone who wants to sell products and services over the internet, or who wants
customers to be able to research their purchases on the internet, should consider an online
store.

These days, a web site should be a standard part of the promotional and advertising mix
for every business, along with other tools such as Yellow Pages, newspaper advertising
and signage.

Advantages of B2C e-commerce

B2C e-commerce has the following advantages:

1. Shopping can be faster and more convenient.

2. Offerings and prices can change instantaneously.
3. Call centers can be integrated with the website.
4. Broadband telecommunications will enhance the buying experience.
Challenges faced by B2C e-commerce

The two main challenges faced by B2C e-commerce are building traffic and sustaining
customer loyalty. Due to the winner-take-all nature of the B2C structure, many smaller
firms find it difficult to enter a market and remain competitive. In addition, online
shoppers are very price-sensitive and are easily lured away, so acquiring and keeping new
customers is difficult.

B2E
Business to Employee
B2E (Business to Employee) E-Commerce generally refers to the requisitioning of
supplies by employees for use in their jobs, but this really has grown to encompass much
more. For example, B2E makes it very easy for an employee to requisition a new toner
cartridge and printer paper - the order is entirely electronic, and supervisors are asked to
approved the requisition in the event that the total order exceeds preset limits for that
particular employee. However, B2E has grown into technologies that allow the employee
to access their employee records to update address information, shift investments in the
401K plan, or maintain their internal resume. Many companies have found that B2E
technologies have dramatically reduced the administrative burdens with the human
resources department. Admittedly, maintaining employee information has little to do with
commerce, but this term has grown to encapsulate this activity into the B2E definition.

C2B
Consumer to Business
A consumer posts his project with a set budget online and within hours companies review
the consumer's requirements and bid on the project. The consumer reviews the bids and
selects the company that will complete the project. Elance empowers consumers around
the world by providing the meeting ground and platform for such transactions

C2B is a rather peculiar Internet phenomenon. An example of C2B e-commerce could be

the following. A student wants to fly from London to New York, but has only £200
($320) in the bank to pay for this round trip. They put up an ad in an Internet C2B site,
seeking airlines that are willing to offer the transatlantic round trip for £200 or less. The
beauty of the Internet is that it brings together a large number of customers to create a
marketplace that a number of airlines (that will have to otherwise fly with empty seats)
will be interested in.

Many analysts state that C2B and C2C e-commerce will thrive in the near future. It is a
challenging task, however, to construct these e-commerce systems because of their
diverse nature. The existing EC construction tools, which usually focus on B2B and B2C
e-commerce schemes, were designed for constructing specific e-commerce systems,
making them unsuitable for developing consumer-initiated e-commerce systems. In this
paper, we propose a trading model that supports C2B and C2C e-commerce through the
use of digital media called “vouchers” and the trading system “VTS”. We show how the
introduction of vouchers simplifies the procedures of C2B and C2C e-commerce, and
show that vouchers, together with VTS, can be utilized to form a trading framework that
uniformly realizes the delivery/payment phase. We demonstrate that a wide range of
matching phase implementations, in which the characteristics of specific e-commerce
systems such as market coordination are implemented, can be integrated into this
framework.

C2C
Consumer to Consumer
The introduction of the new economy has helped to create a very individualistic and
independent society. Consumers are no longer totally reliant on corporations and are
increasingly looking to conduct their own business transactions. This is evident in
Western Australia where the number of small businesses has doubled from 1983 to 1999
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). At the forefront of this movement are Consumer-
to-Consumer (C2C) applications within eBusiness. C2C applications are any transactions
between and amongst consumers (QUT School of International Business, 2003, p. xv).
They are often described as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) (QUT School of International Business,
2003, p. xv). When eCommerce was first introduced, it redefined the traditional structure
of business by giving small firms and individuals the same opportunity as multi-national
corporations. As a result, many individuals established online organizations that
encouraged and assisted commerce between consumers.

C2G
Consumer to Government