Understanding B2B and B2C Business Models

Business to business can be defined as business that is involved in selling products to other businesses. In reality business-to-business (B2B) exist both online and offline but the B2B acronym has mainly been used to describe the online variety which has become common in the world today. Business-to-consumer (B2C) can be described as businesses that are concerned in selling products or providing services to end-user consumers.

Business-to-consumer exist both online and offline but the acronym B2C has been used to describe business online (Kinder, 2001; Fang, Milena and Norm, 2002). B2B is mainly concerned in selling its products to another company that then sell to the final consumers. Business-to-business operates large number of transactions as compared to business-to-consumer and hence the transactions are mainly dealt with using electronic media. Business-to-business has adopted electronic commerce to enhance efficiency and reliability (Kinder, 2001).

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B2B is complicated with many employees while B2C is simpler and consist of fewer employees as compared to B2B. Business-to-business involves transactions between buyers and suppliers at organizational level. While business-to-consumers represent interaction between buyer and seller at individual level (Kinder, 2001; Fang, Milena and Norm, 2002). Business-to-business seems to do well online while business-to-consumer has lost fame due to loss of large sums of money when it was first inverted hence not widely used by many companies.

Markets that are concerned by B2B are comparatively larger and overcrowded than B2C (Kinder, 2001; Fang, Milena and Norm, 2002). B2B email marketing has differences with B2C. In email marketing B2B has other major objectives other than sale objective, for example marketing the products available in the said company and hence it takes long before one land to the page that directs you to the purchase page. B2C primary objective in email marketing is sales and hence the initial click takes one to landing, page and then after few seconds to shopping cart.

In a B2B the buyer is provided with the necessary logistics and then follow a series of steps in the email campaign which include both online and offline procedures before getting the to the last step which include phone call an employee representative of the company, a PDF document may then be attached to the email by the representative and for high-end products and services, a face-to-face meeting may be more efficient. In both B2B and B2C, there is limited permission in regard to email marketing with the consumer/buyers to obtain information require a longer process in B2B to ensure seriousness and reliability of the exchange.

The buyers are assured of confidentiality of the information they give while in B2C there are no such services. In B2C, once the customer has entered the required information than include name, phone and mailing address, one expects to be handed in the purchased product immediately (Kinder, 2001). In both B2B and B2C, there is the challenge of copywriting. It’s argued that in email marketing, it’s hard to tell whether the words or voice used compels the consumer well. However B2B is said to be more efficient in compelling buyers than B2C which uses a subject line to capture attention of the buyer (Fang, Milena and Norm, 2002).

B2B which deal with large volumes of transactions is more likely to incur the problem of outdated email addresses especially when people change email address unless the marketer signs up with email change of address (ECOA) service like Return Path. B2C hardly incurs the problem because the list of email addresses provided is updated. Moreover B2C deal with small number of transactions hence it’s easy to trace the buyer’s addresses and verify their reliability (Kinder, 2001; Fang, Milena and Norm, 2002). It’s argued that B2B email marketing is more interesting than B2C.

B2B involves moving back and forth, side to side and numerous interesting information is provided which attract attention of the buyer but the B2C only provide one leading page which doesn’t have much information and hence not adventurous (Kinder, 2001). References Fang, W. Milena, H. and Norm, A. “E-Tailing: An Analysis of Web Impacts on Retail Market’’. Journal of Business Strategies 19. 2002, 34-89. Kinder, T. “The Use of Call Centers by Local Public Administrators’’. Marketing Journal 33, 2001, 45-88.

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