eCommerce Type

Introduction – As ecommerce refers to the process of buying and selling over internet, we can distinguish its types on the basis of relationship between the buyer and the seller. It’s the nature of ecommerce that ultimately decides the market relationship between the two parties involved. Let’s have a look at its types –

B2C – Business to Consumer, is the most commonly referred type of ecommerce in which the retailer directly sells its products and/or services to the ultimate buyer. With the advent of technology it has become easy for anyone to setup its online store and become a retailer himself. The following are the models of B2C segment – portals, online retailers, content providers, transaction brokers, market creators, service provider, community providers etc.

B2B – Business to Business, is the most successful type of ecommerce which includes selling products and/or services directly to other businesses. It is like wholesalers selling to retailers, distributers selling to wholesalers, producers selling to distributers etc. Initially B2B selling used to deal only amongst businesses as a medium of inter-exchange but later new models of B2B has also evolved like B2B service providers, matchmakers, e-distributors etc.

C2C – Consumer to Consumer, refers to the type of ecommerce in which the consumer directly sell to another consumer by way of auctioning, placing free classifieds, directly interacting and selling through forums etc. In such type of ecommerce activity the consumer only has to prepare the product for the market, put it online and leave the rest on the medium used to make catalogue, transaction clearing capabilities and simplifying the process of sending-receiving money. eBay is the perfect example of such a type to ecommerce activity.

C2B -Consumer to Business, is the new type of ecommerce which has emerged to bridge the gap between talented professionals and needy companies looking for premade projects to use. In such type of ecommerce skilled individuals prepares a product and/or service and sell directly to the companies who are always on hunt for premade products. Eg: Elance is an online provider upon which freelancers work for companies to sell their products and/or services.

M-commerce – Mobile Commerce, refers to the use of mobile phone and wireless communication systems to enable transactions online. Handheld devices like i-Phones, Palm PCs uses the wireless networks for the whole process of buying and selling. M-commerce is an emerging ecommerce pattern and still to reach massive users .It is the fastest growing field of ecommerce as more and more mobile phones are getting cheaper with a number of features. M-commerce will soon be seen on heights.

Other types of ecommerce – Business to Employee (B2E), in which a business directly sells to its employees though internet. Business to Government (B2G), in which business sells to the branches of government .Peer to peer (P2P) in which personal computers are used to share files and other computer resources without having to use any central web-server.

From : http://technerd7.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/types-of-ecommerce/