ePathChina Electronics Blog

As far as we known, in the nowadays, e-commerce has emerged as a new force. However, not everyone has accurate information of it. We often hear people mention B2B, B2C and C2C, but what are they? Actually, they are different e-business modes.

As a professional e-commerce dealer, ePathChina is pleased to share some useful information about e-commerce modes. There are almost seven kinds, namely, B2B, B2C, C2C, B2M, M2C, B2A (B2G) and C2A (C2G).

B2B = Business to Business

B2B (referring to the enterprises), namely have products, services, and information exchanging between enterprise to enterprise. Sometimes it is written as B to B. according to the target, B2B can be divided into foreign trade B2B and domestic B2B; in accordance with field can be divided into comprehensive B2B and vertical B2B. For instance, alibaba.com, made-in-china.com, dhgate.com, hc360.com etc. are typical B2B dealers in China.

B2C = Business to Customer

B2C is the earliest e-commerce mode in China, with a sign of 8848 online mall’s official operating. B2C means enterprises provide a new shopping environment for consumers through the Internet – online stores, consumer can purchase online and pay online. This mode saves the time and space of enterprises and customers, which improve the transactional efficiency. The famous domestic B2C are dangdang.com, joyo.com and so on.

C2C = Consumer to Consumer

As a e-commerce mode, unlike B2B and B2C, C2C is a pattern between consumers and consumers that provides an online transaction platform for contracting parties, which not only make sellers provide commodities auction online but also buyers select and bid up the preferred goods themselves, such as ebay.cn, taobao.com, paipai.com, youa.com.

B2M = Business to Manager

Comparatively speaking, B2M is a kind of brand-new mode of electronic business. But this mode has essential difference from above three. The ultimate difference lies in their target client base’s features. The former three’s target customers group appear as consumers, but B2M‘s customers group are enterprises or products sellers or other worker, not ultimate consumers.

Compared with the traditional e-commerce, B2M has a greater advantage: e-commerce below the line development! B2M can bring online commodities and service to below-the-line.

Enterprises publish their products or services through the network; professional managers obtain the products or services information on the net, and provide products selling or enterprises services, then, enterprises achieve the object of selling products and gain services with the services from managers, both online or offline. Professional managers earn commission by providing services for enterprises. Essentially, B2M is a proxy pattern.

M2C = Manager to Consumer

M2C is not only an extension of B2M, but also an obbligato follow-up developing like of B2M. Unlike B2M doesn’t target at final consumers, in M2C link, the manager will face consumers, namely ultimate consumers.

Managers will eventually sell products to consumers, similar to the C2C, but not completely. C2C is a traditional profit pattern, whose earning is basically the price difference of offer goods. Nevertheless, the profit models of M2C and are abundant and flexible; they can be both the price difference and commission. And M2C’s logistics management mode can be also more diverse than C2C, such as zero inventories; and cash flow has more advantages than traditional C2C.

B2A = Business to Administration (B2G = Business to Government)

B2A refers to the e-commerce activities between the administrative agencies and business institutions. For example, the government releases the purchasing details on the internet, and then invites bids via online auction; enterprises also need to submit bids via electronic way. Currently, this way is still in the initial stage of experiment.

C2A = Consumer to Administration (C2G = Consumer to Government)

C2A refers to the e-commerce activities between administrative agencies and consumer. In fact, this mode doesn’t really form. However, in some developed countries, such as Australia, its governmental tax administration has reported tax returns in electronic way via appointing private sector or financial accounting firms. Although this kind of activity does not achieve real electronic tax returns reporting, it has rudiment of consumer to administrative agencies this e-commerce mode.

Want to see beautiful and favorable price electronics from China?

Chinese Electronics Suppliers – Buy Electronics Cheap!