Business 

What Is B2C? Definition & Precise Detailed Examples

Sovereign Media Team 3 Comments , ,

What Is B2C?

The term business-to-consumer (B2C) refers to the process of selling products and services directly between a business and consumers.

B2C e-commerce is the typical exchange of goods or services over the internet between online stores and individual customers.

B2C became popular during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s when it was mainly used to refer to online retailers. Its stands for business-to-consumer. While it applies to any direct-to-consumer selling, it has come to be associated with online selling, known as e-commerce or e-tailing.

B2C e-commerce business model is often the business model that people think of when they hear the word e-commerce. The increased amount of work in this model also contributes to this popularity. E-commerce and online shopping have promoted the B2C, where sellers and retailers market their services and products directly to the consumers by internet access.

Unlike B2B, B2C customers don’t use the traded offering to step up their offering or resell it to make profits. Prices and products are published clearly in B2C. Delivery conditions, warranty conditions, price, and other product features are stated in the announcement of the sales.

In recent years, the growth in B2C online sales has created significant challenges for classical “brick-and-mortar” businesses, losing market share to online competitors. All major companies worldwide have joined the competition with the e-stores they have opened on their websites and marketplaces.

B2B Business Model

In this business model that emerged with the growth of e-commerce, consumers sell their products to other consumers through specific marketplace applications at a price they determine.

B2C Business Model

The B2C business model is basically implemented in 2 different ways. The first is virtual marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, ETSY. The second application is that the manufacturer sells its products to end-users through its virtual store.

E-Commerce Types

Business-to-consumer is the most commonly known e-commerce model. Here are the others:

What Is B2C Marketing

B2C marketing refers to the various strategies in which a company promotes its products and services to consumers. The goal of B2C marketing is the end customer. Restaurants and retail stores are examples of B2C companies. Websites that offer consumer products are also B2C. The targeted sales cycle in B2C marketing is short. The goal is to ensure that the customer gets the product immediately.

B2C businesses focus on efficiency so, minimizing the amount of time spent getting info about the customer, which causes the relationship to become very transactional.

B2C marketers have to work on their e-store and social media accounts consistently to make them attractive and optimized with SEO rules. The main objective is to keep customers and make them revisit the site or e-store. They also have to keep their website optimized with different search engines.

To counter such issues, platforms like PayPal, Humbl Pay, Visa MasterCard, etc., that provide online payment processing.

Advantages Of The B2C Business Model

  • With low capital, it is possible to open an e-store, to be included in a marketplace. It is sufficient to get technical support and have a certain amount of internet knowledge to establish a B2C e-Commerce store.
  • Accessibility: Products and services are available 7/24. Visitors can view the site at any time of the day and place an order.
  • Low costs: Requires less staff. It is less costly than fixed costs in a normal business.
  • Marketplace: It is possible to sell worldwide, not just on a district or city basis.
  • Globalism: The company, products, and brand can be recognized worldwide in a short time. If your products are unique and of good quality and cheap, thousands of people from dozens of countries can find your store in a short time.
  • Promotions and Campaigns: Discounts and campaigns allow your products to be sold in a much shorter time than a local store.
  • Category and Classification: It is possible to categorize products in an e-store, prioritize the promotion of some products, and even change the products in the shop window per hour automatically. Making these in a physical store is very laborious and time-consuming. With the category layout, visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.
  • Product Range: With dropshipping methods, you can sell thousands of products that you do not keep stock of. It is both expensive and difficult to open and even manage a real store of this size. Your customers can access thousands of products in a few clicks.
  • Having SEO: SEO is a must for optimizing your site, advertising to search engines enables B2C customers to find your store. You do not need to make any extra effort.
  • Marketplace: It is possible to sell worldwide, not just on a district or city basis.
  • Globalism: The company, products, and brand can be recognized worldwide in a short time. If your products are unique and of good quality and cheap, thousands of people from dozens of countries can find your store in a short time.
  • Promotions and Campaigns: Discounts and campaigns allow your products to be sold in a much shorter time than a local store.
  • Category and Classification: It is possible to categorize products in an e-store, prioritize the promotion of some products, and even change the products in the shop window per hour automatically. Making these in a physical store is very laborious and time-consuming. With the category layout, visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.
  • Product Range: With drop shipping methods, you can sell thousands of products you do not keep stock of. It is both expensive and difficult to open and even manage a real store of this size. Your customers can access thousands of products in a few clicks.
  • With good SEO work and a successful e-advertising campaign, you can ensure that many customers reach your site without much effort.

B2C Basic Skills

  • Awareness: 5 billion people are using the internet across the world. Suppose you own an online store. The limit on the number of customers you can reach and the number of countries you can get depends on the languages ​​your web store supports and your e-advertise budget. The web market doesn’t have any boundaries. All companies can target their customers using multiple platforms directly.
  • Interaction: Interactivity gives buyers the chance to directly communicate their demands, expectations, and complaints to sellers. So the seller could satisfy the buyer’s requirements quickly. This process has accelerated, mostly thanks to social media channels and customer communication tools in stores. Thanks to virtual assistant applications, customers’ standard questions can be answered automatically, while a customer representative can step in and produce solutions instantly on more specific issues. Sometimes a few words of communication prevent you from missing the customer.
  • Better Service: This ease and speed of communication enable companies that invest in e-commerce to take action very quickly, reach potential customers, answer customer questions quickly, and increase their sales if they carry out these processes successfully. However, this speed carries risks with it. Communication skills of customer representatives, knowledge about products, and representation style of your company are essential.

B2C Disadvantages:

  • Opening a B2C store is quick and easy. This advantage turns into cutthroat competition with the participation of many companies in the market. In a multiplayer market, competition increases, advertising and promotion budgets need to be raised, and the profit margin decreases.
  • There are still customers who are skeptical of online stores or refrain from buying products without seeing or touching them. Some products are difficult to sell on the internet. The shipping process of some products is expensive and risky.
  • In the e-commerce store, it is easy and fast to make discounts and campaigns, but all your competitors have this speed. Competitor stores an equivalent product prices must be closely monitored.
  • The B2C market is continually evolving. A new product, a new technology, new software can change all balances in an instant. It’s not just your products and services and competing stores that sell them. You should closely follow the software you use and your stakeholders in the market in-store and product management, social media management, advertising, and promotion tools management. It would help if you managed your returns, rates, and budget well from advertising channels.
  • Competition: It is easy to open an e-store, but it takes serious effort to attract visitors to your store, make sales, develop your social media channels, and your website to rank higher in search engines. You have a lot of competitors, but remember, this competition makes you dynamic.
  • Limited Interactions: There are significant advantages for the buyer and seller to interact instantly, but on the other hand, customers have to buy products without touching or trying. People don’t want to buy clothes without trying them, but selling clothes on websites is famous thanks to the exchange option. What about furniture? Is it easy to sell a seat without sitting on it or trying it? Likewise, returning a chair is difficult and costly. In short, some products are still difficult to sell with limited interaction.
  • Security: There are many e-traders involved in fraudulent activities. There is news about credit card frauds. We hear the information that the product specified in the advertisement is not sent, and the defective product is sent. The trust risk in online shopping remains.

What are the Differences Between B2B and B2C Business Models?

  • B2B customers focus on price, payment options, and quality. They act according to their commercial expectations, in line with logic and benefit. Trading with B2B customers is based on more rational reasons.
  • B2C customers approach products with more current and emotional expectations. Their expectations for quality and price are shaped by the product image they have in mind.
  • B2C customers are more interactive than B2B customers. They share their product experiences with other users, write reviews and product reviews on the store pages. B2B users avoid sharing their likes and criticisms with other users. For B2B customers, other customers are potential competitors.
  • B2B customers are more likely to repurchase a product than B2C customers. The liking of B2B customers is that they can sell that product and make a profit. Therefore, they can buy the same product multiple times.
  • Prices or delivery conditions of products in the B2B area are open to negotiation. Prices of products are not published on many B2B sites. Payment terms may vary depending on the customer’s commercial identity and creditworthiness before banks. It is compulsory to comply with the requirements in the B2C area. In B2C sites, the prices of the products are the same for everyone. Cash or installment sales options do not change on a customer basis. Everyone is offered the same conditions.

Michael Aldrich first utilized the idea of ​​B2C in 1979, who used television as the primary medium to reach out to consumers.

B2C traditionally referred to mall shopping, eating out at restaurants, pay-per-view movies, and infomercials. However, the rise of the Internet created a whole new B2C business channel in e-commerce or selling goods and services over the Internet.

B2C refers to online selling (e-trade), or e-tailing, in which manufacturers or retailers sell the products to consumers by using the Internet.

The years 1995-2000, when Internet-based projects and e-commerce companies gained excessive value, are called dotcom bubbles. The crash of the NASDAQ stock market in 2000 led to the bankruptcy of hundreds of e-commerce companies, including B2C companies. The shares of Amazon, which was 107 dollars before this crisis, fell to 7 dollars. Anyway, Amazon shakeout but didn’t fall and has since seen tremendous success.

Decades after the dotcom revolution, B2C business is more common than ever before. The pandemic in 2020 has spread the interest in digital shopping. In other words, the elderly segment of the population and the low-income segment were included in this market with increased users during the epidemic process.

During the teleshopping process, which started on a small number of TV channels, B2C has now turned into e-stores that everyone using mobile phones can reach with a few clicks.

B2C Online Business Models

There are five common types of B2C business models. We are mentioning the online business as Direct sellers, Intermediaries, Community-Based Models, Advertising-based and Fee-based online business models.

1) Direct sellers

Direct selling is the most popular business model. Direct sellers offer a wide variety of goods and services to consumers via the Internet. It’s a common e-commerce business type for Small businesses, especially producers that market their products and services using their e-stores & web pages.

Example Companies: Amway, Avon

2) Intermediaries

Intermediaries only offer the sections & pages or inner e-stores on their e-marketplace. So intermediaries don’t sell any product. They only provide an e-marketplace with good traffic and advertisement options.

Intermediaries comprise different online platforms that redirect the web traffic to the retail site. Their main goal is to provide adequate traffic. They attract customers to their retailer’s pages on the central platform.

Example Companies: Etsy, Expedia

3) Community-Based Models (Online communities)

Social media channels and standard users offer companies page space for companies to advertise their brand or products. It is free to create a page on social media channels, create content for products and services, but you must advertise to promote your page and products and attract visitors to your page. Companies use such platforms to target their required market or demographic directly.

Example Companies: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram,

4) Advertising-based business models

Advertising-based companies offer key advertising features to attract consumers to a specific web page like e-store or their client’s home page. Bloggers, YouTubers, and other influencers can do it also using their social media channels. It helps the clients increase their website traffic once they have massive traffic on their blog or site.

Example Companies: Bloggers

5) Fee-based business models

Fee-based companies offer their services to the companies with a standard fee. These sites have classified service models that you can receive for a certain period and provide purchasing options. For example, an e-newspaper or e-media channel offers weekly or monthly packages for product or brand promotion. Once the offer expires, the customer needs to pay again to get access also.

Example Companies: Amazon Prime, Daily News

Top B2C Companies

  • Amazon.com Amazon.com is the largest online retailer all over the world. Amazon operates in both a B2C and a C2C market.
  • Google: Google is serving both individual customers and other businesses. So Google is a B2B and also a B2C company.
  • Facebook: Facebook is more B2C than B2B. On the other hand, Facebook is the e-marketplace for both B2C and B2B. It’s better to call it, social marketplace.
  • Alibaba: Alibaba is a B2B company. Alibaba’s diversification in B2C (Tmall) and P2P (Taobao) trade.
  • Baidu: Baidu is the leading Chinese B2C company, its a search engine like Google and has many other services, something as Google.
  • eBay: Another US B2C website was founded in 1995. Ebay is still connecting both sellers and consumers.
  • Netflix and Spotify: Both companies are service-focused, software-based B2C companies. NetFlix help provides videos, and Spotify delivers music services on the Internet.

3 thoughts on “What Is B2C? Definition & Precise Detailed Examples”

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: