What Are the 2 Main Categories of E-Commerce Websites?
Electronic commerce, or "e-commerce," refers to a wide range of business activities associated with buying and selling goods and services over the Internet. E-commerce activities fall into many identifiable categories, but the two main categories of e-commerce website are business-to-business, referred to commonly as "B2B," and business-to-consumer, referred to as "B2C."
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B2B E-Commerce
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B2B e-commerce websites are concerned with trade between and among businesses. Typical applications include purchase order processing, distribution management and payment management, usually in the form of electronic payment systems. Terms such as "outsourcing," in which a company delegates work, such as payroll, to another company, and "offshoring," in which a company delegates work to a company in a different country, have become synonymous with B2B e-commerce.
E-Frastructure and E-Markets
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B2B e-commerce is, in fact, the largest form of e-commerce in the United States, accounting for approximately 80 percent of e-commerce transactions. B2B e-commerce consists of two major components, known as e-frastructure and e-markets. E-frastructure is the infrastructure, or architecture, of e-commerce and includes transportation, warehousing, distribution, application service providers and outsourced functions, such as Web hosting, customer care and security functions, among others. E-markets, also known as "net marketplaces," are simply the e-commerce websites that bring the buyers and sellers of goods and services together.
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B2C E-Commerce
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The other main category of e-commerce website, B2C, represents the second largest and earliest form of e-commerce. The origins of B2C commerce can be traced back to the selling of goods on the Internet, or through solicitation by electronic mail, otherwise known as "e-tailing." B2C commerce websites are concerned with direct trade between businesses and consumers and may include not only online retailers, but also content, community or service providers, transaction brokers and websites, known as portals, which provide a gateway to other websites.
Typical Examples
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The most common B2C e-commerce websites involve purchasing tangible, physical goods, such as books and other consumer products or digitized products, such as software and e-books, which can be downloaded electronically. Online retailers Amazon and Barnes & Noble are typical examples of this type of B2C e-commerce website. Other, goods and services, such as personal finance management or trading tools, flight reservations, hotel bookings and care hire may also be supplied to consumers via B2C e-commerce websites. Quicken, E-Trade and Travelocity are typical examples of this type of B2C e-commerce website.
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References
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