Types of E-commerce

There are a number of different types of e-commerce, distinguished for the most part by the nature of the market relationship — who is selling to whom. Mobile, social, and local e-commerce can be looked at as subsets of these types.

Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce is the most commonly discussed type: online businesses sell to individual consumers. B2C includes retail goods, travel and other services, and online content. Although comparatively small in dollar terms (about $600 billion in the United States in 2016), B2C has grown exponentially since 1995 and is the type most consumers encounter.

Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce — businesses selling to other businesses — is the largest form of e-commerce, with around $6.7 trillion in transactions in the United States in 2016. The two primary business models within B2B 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 (platform provider) such as eBay or Etsy, the classifieds site Craigslist, or on-demand service companies such as Airbnb and Uber. In addition, m-commerce uses mobile devices for online transactions, social e-commerce is enabled by social networks and online social relationships, and local e-commerce focuses on engaging consumers based on their current geographic location.