Fullerton
Are you interested in getting into e-commerce? Before you venture into it, it’s important that you know exactly what type of business you want to run. Ecommerce encompasses seven different models, which are based on the participants involved in the transactions. The participants refer to the consumers, businesses, and government entities. Here are the seven types of ecommerce models you can choose to go into:
Business to Consumer
The first type of e-commerce model is the Business to Consumer or B2C model. This type of structure directly sells services or goods straight to the consumer via the internet. Examples of these types of businesses are software providers or web hosting. Simple online stores may also be considered B2C business structures.
Business to Business
The next type of e-commerce venture is Business to Business or B2B. This is when a business sells services or goods directly to other businesses. We can consider business solutions service providers as B2B types. Some very good examples of business solution providers are online ad agencies, online software solutions, and online task management services.
Consumer to Consumer
C2C or Consumer to Consumer types are e-commerce platforms that bring consumers together in a marketplace. These types of store can often be found for sale on ecommerce marketplaces like Exchange by Shopify. In these types of stores, buyers can look for products and sellers can display their stock in one place.
Consumer to Business
Consumer to Business or C2B refers to platforms that allow the consumers to set the terms for the businesses to follow. An example of this sort of model would be project bidding platforms. The consumer will place all the requirements and the details of the project and the businesses will flock to it. Ebay can probably be considered a C2B platform because of its bidding system.
Business to Administration
When we talk about administration, we are referring to government entities. For these types of e-commerce ventures, the businesses will supply the government entities with a platform or services. An example of this type of business structure are e-government platform providers.
Consumer to Administration
For this type of business structure, the consumers that will be dealing directly with government entities. Examples of this type of e-commerce structure would be the electronic payment or remittance platforms. These platforms allow individuals to make payments to their respective government bodies for various purposes. This could be to pay for getting certain documents or for filing income tax returns.
Business to Employees
The last type of structure is the business to employees e-commerce structure. This refers to platforms wherein businesses will directly provide services to their employees. Examples of these types of platforms would be online insurance management platforms or online employee benefits management platforms.
Conclusion
If you want to get into e-commerce, the first thing that you have to do is to choose which type of model you want to go into. Each of them has their own respective pros and cons. The decision will solely be up to your industry experience, preference, and the products or services that you want to offer.
