Types of E-commerce
Major categories of e-commerce by participants.
5-mark Exam Answer
E-commerce is classified by the nature of the market relationship — who is selling to whom. Laudon and Traver identify three principal types (B2C, B2B, C2C) and three important subsets (mobile, social, and local e-commerce).
- 1.B2C: businesses to consumers
- 2.B2B: businesses to businesses (largest)
- 3.C2C: consumers to consumers via market maker
- 4.M-commerce, social, local as subsets
- 5.B2B dwarfs B2C in dollar size
Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce is the most commonly discussed type: online businesses attempt to reach individual consumers. B2C includes retail goods, travel and other services, and online content. It is comparatively small (about $600 billion in 2016) but has grown exponentially since 1995 and is the type consumers most often encounter.
Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, in which businesses focus on selling to other businesses, is the largest form of e-commerce, with around $6.7 trillion in transactions in 2016. Two primary B2B business models are Net marketplaces (e-distributors, e-procurement, exchanges, industry consortia) and private industrial networks.
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce provides a way for consumers to sell to each other, with the help of an online market maker such as eBay, Etsy, or Craigslist, or on-demand service companies such as Airbnb and Uber.
Mobile, social, and local e-commerce are subsets that cut across the principal types. M-commerce uses mobile devices to enable online transactions; social e-commerce is enabled by social networks and online social relationships; local e-commerce focuses on engaging consumers based on their current geographic location.
Amazon is B2C; Amazon Business and industry consortia are B2B; eBay and Etsy are C2C; Uber and Airbnb are on-demand service examples combining C2C with local e-commerce.
The major types of e-commerce — B2C, B2B, and C2C — together with the mobile, social, and local subsets, describe the full landscape of digital commerce.
The exam interface follows the university paper pattern: Section A & B carry 5-mark questions; Section C carries objective questions.