What Is the Meaning of C2C?

C2C stands for “Customer to Customer.” Consumer to Consumer is a type of e-commerce, abbreviated as C2C, which refers to the commercial relationship that consumers establish with each other. With the growth of e-commerce, as the channels where consumers can make mutual trade increase, in this business model, consumers sell their products to other consumers through specific marketplace applications at a price they determine. You can think of the C2C system as an online shopping mall.

C2C stands for consumer-to-consumer, which is the exchange of products or services between consumers.

C2C is the abbreviated global meaning of consumer-to-consumer e-commerce. Refers to online shopping consumers each other. In this e-commerce model, consumers showcase their products and services by coming together in a virtual marketplace, social platform, or an online website designed for C2C commerce.

The consumer-to-consumer model differs from others because consumers interact with each other. In many countries, there are no obligations such as issuing invoices or paying additional taxes for these sales among consumers. Sellers are only responsible for the condition of the product at the time of delivery. That is, there is no product replacement, technical service, and return procedures.

C2C How It Works

Looking at the formation of C2C, consumers who want to sell their products register to an e-marketplace and begin to exhibit their products in this e-marketplace. Buyers review the ads listed on this e-marketplace and buy the products they like. The purchase can be made by paying an advertisement price, placing a bid, or participating in an auction.

C2C companies are a type of business model that emerged with e-commerce technology and the sharing economy. The e-commerce site where e-commerce is made is an intermediary. The company that owns an e-commerce site does not market its products on the site, does not upload any product advertisements. The e-commerce company only determines the terms of the trade to take place on the e-marketplace, determines the buyer and seller’s responsibilities, and sometimes mediates the money transfer. C2C e-commerce site users perform their trading transactions.

For example, on eBay, sellers enter advertisements for their products. On the Uber site, car owners create content for the vehicle and transportation conditions they will serve. Fiverr allows users to post a personal for-hire service.

Income Sources of C2C Sites

Most C2C sites generate revenue from commissions or membership fees. Some places charge membership fees for sellers who want to list their products or services to sell. Some e-commerce sites charge a certain percentage of the product price from sellers, sometimes both buyers and sellers.

C2C sites act as intermediaries by matching buyers with sellers. They have little control over the quality of the products or services sold, but buyers’ comments on sellers’ advertisements are more decisive.

PayPal is a money transfer platform that charges a transfer fee on each transaction due to its C2C trading service. On the Fiverr website, sellers who market their products or services and intermediaries who purchase these goods and services are charged a percentage commission for each transaction made. In real estate websites, buyers and sellers do not pay a commission for the actual transactions, but sellers, real estate, or construction companies, pay monthly dues.

What are the revenues of C2C Sites?

You can earn money from C2C ​​e-commerce sites in more than one way. Some C2C sites receive weekly, monthly, annual dues from their members. These sites’ main income is the dues paid by the member sellers to make regular sales through their sites. Most real estate sites work this way.

Some C2C sites charge vendors per ad. Revenue is generated by selling ad packages that make it possible to post different numbers of advertisements with options such as 1, 10, 100 ad fees. Some real estate and second-hand vehicle sales sites work this way.

C2C sites can earn income by getting commissions from the sales of goods and services carried out by sellers operating within their organization.

C2C sites can earn income by selling doping, priority in the ranking, being in the first place, etc., packages to highlight buyers’ goods and services on e-marketplace listing pages and in-site searches.

C2C sites are e-marketplaces that bring buyers and sellers together, create heavy traffic. As such sites’ popularity increases, the unit value of the advertisements that can be published on the site increases. Car Buying and selling sites are the first choice of advertising media for automotive companies and real estate sites for construction companies. They are the sites that the target audience visits. Therefore, advertising is an essential source of income for C2C sites.

e-Commerce Business Models

C2C e-commerce differs from other business models as consumers interact directly with each other. The buyer can shop for free, but sellers sometimes pay a fee to the online platform where the C2C transaction took place to list their products.

What are the Differences Between C2C E-Commerce Channels and Physical Shopping Mall?

The biggest difference between them is that one is a digital marketplace, and the other is a physical store. Although the number of stands and shops that can be rented in a physical shopping mall is limited, there is no limit on the store or sales page offered to users in an online e-marketplace.

In physical conditions, the maximum number of people who can enter a shop or a shopping mall is certain. What a physical store can do to increase the number of visitors is limited. For an online C2C marketplace, the limit of the number of users to visit the system is quite high. As the number of users increases, the capacity can be increased quickly and economically by increasing the server capacity or revising the hosting service purchased.

For example, while five thousand people can visit the largest shopping center in Europe simultaneously, the instant visitor capacity of an e-commerce store can be high enough to allow millions of people to shop at the same time.

Perhaps an essential difference is that shopping malls and marketplaces are mainly designed for shops and stand for using companies only. There are very few physical sales areas where C2C sales activities can be carried out.

In order to shop in the mall, a person has to take many actions. From the consumer’s home, they should go to the store, possibly use a vehicle or public transport, and transport the purchased items to their home. An e-marketplace is just a click away.

What are the Differences Between C2C and B2C?

Both of the abbreviations are as follows:

• C2C -> Customer to Customer,
• B2C -> Business to Customer.

The B2C business model is a platform where companies can offer their products for sale. The company uploads its own products to its e-shop, products are displayed in the e-shop, and customers buy. In the C2C business model, many sellers upload their products to a single e-marketplace. Although the sellers have separate pages, the working logic of the C2C e-marketplaces is the search pages where products of the same type and similar features can be listed. Therefore, the ads of hundreds of thousands of sellers whose products are exhibited are listed on the site, and buyers buy the products they have selected from these lists and examined.

In the C2C system, the site owner receives commissions from the transactions and gets a periodic subscription fee from the vendors. Now, many companies create e-marketplaces by using their products and adding other vendors to the system.

Traditionally, people participate in C2C commerce when selling or buying products at a flea market or auction or sale sites.

Difference between B2B and C2C

1. Different models of businesses

2. Legalities required for operation

3.How they formulate pricing

4. Scale of Operations

5. Main cause of the failed transaction

6. Organizational Structure

Brief History Of C2C

There are two various C2C e-commerce applications. The first is by classification, for example, real estate, automotive, household goods sales, and the second is the auction, auction method. The oldest known auction house is the Stockholm Auction House, founded in 1674 in Sweden. Therefore, the first application that offers buyers and sellers the opportunity to trade from a venue-owning broker is in auction houses. That is, the first C2C application is auction management. Today, the auction method has seriously shifted to the internet medium. The most successful up-to-date website in an auction is eBay.

Until the ’90s, real estate sales, second-hand cars, and goods were sold through newspapers and magazines’ advertisement pages. These newspapers and magazines were, in a sense, C2C trade vehicles. Today, the place where these types of products are sold is C2C e-marketplaces.

Examples of C2C

The goal of C2C is to make it easy for buyers and sellers to find each other. C2C e-commerce provides two important advantages to consumers. First, they take advantage of the competition, and secondly, they can easily find products that are difficult to find.

The C2C model has become progressively increasing day by day. C2C marketing has soared in popularity with the rise of the Internet and companies such as eBay, Etsy. Online marketplaces that allow consumers to make sales work with the C2C business model. Companies such as Ebay, AirBnB, Uber, Facebook are sites where different products and services are sold at the price determined by consumers. The company that owns the platform that allows users to trade maybe a company established for C2C purposes only, or C2C can be a separate module on websites or one of the e-commerce options.

eBay is an e-auction site that enables consumers to trade with each other. Amazon is an e-commerce platform with both B2C and C2C platforms.

PayPal, for example, lets people make and receive online payments with a limited commission.

How Should C2C E-Commerce Digital Marketing Be Done?

C2C e-commerce projects are a system with more potential than standard e-commerce projects. However, the digital marketing to be applied at this point is of great importance.

Promotion on Google, social media, and websites is called digital marketing. Compared to traditional methods, digital platforms now provide more income. The target audience can be determined and reached more clearly, and shorten the branding process of companies.

Brands, companies can primarily use the Google Analytics tool to analyze the target audience. Brands can advertise directly to their target audience on social media with the information they obtain. Thus, with the increase in conversion rates, sales costs will decrease.