Abstract
The recent years, the use of e-commerce has become popular to many people. Many business and individuals are carrying out this type of business. The paper explains the meaning of electronic commerce in details by use of an example to differentiate between each model. It goes further to explain the different models of e-commerce and to give a deeper meaning of each type of commerce. The four main models of e-commerce are explained separately with examples. The paper further examines different scenarios of e-commerce. The scenarios are well elaborated, and the model of the e-commerce taking place in every case is mentioned and a substantiating reason for the mention. Finally, an appropriate channel where each of the models can be advertised is also explained in the paper.
There are new trends in business activates primarily in the marketing and e-commerce is one the new trends. E-commerce is a subset of e-business and entails many activities that are carried out online. The activities include selling, purchasing of goods over the internet, in which the terms, transactions, and conditions are done electronically (Laudon & Carol, 2007.). It can be broken into four categories that can also be referred to as models. They are business to business (B2B), consumer to business (C2B), consumer to consumer (C2C), and consumer to business (C2b) (Manchala, 2008). The purpose of this essay to define different types of e-commerce and identifying different models of e-commerce given in three separate cases.
The first type of e-commerce is B2B. This takes places when companies or organizations do business with each other. For example, a given business can purchase finished goods from another company as its raw material. There are neither consumers nor people transacting, but the transaction is carried out by business as separate identities (Barnes-Vieyra & Claycomb, 2010). It can also occur when a wholesaler sells bulky products to a retailer, and the prices of the commodities in question are usually negotiable by the two business.
The second type of B2C e-commerce whereby businesses sell products to the general public. It is done through catalogs that are issued to the customer by use of shopping cart software. There are no personal interactions between the business and the buyers, and all transactions are carried out electronically by use of computers (Laudon & Carol, 2007.).
The final type of e-commerce is a consumer to consumer (C2C). In this model, people are involved in the trade without necessarily meeting. Many websites are offering free classifieds and auctions where people can post the goods they want to sell, and other can post they good they want to buy. People can send the money through electronic payment system like PayPal. A good example where this model of e-commerce takes place is eBay’s auction platform. The advertisement of the products sellable through e-commerce is done online. There are different scenarios where various types of e-commerce take place.
The first scenario is where you buy a PlayStation 3 video game from Amazon. The kind of e-commerce happening here is a business to consumer model (B2C) whereby an individual purchases a product online from Amazon. The payment is made via electronic payment system, and the production is shipped to the location of the buyer. Marketing of the PlayStation can be done only by paying for Ads on different websites.
Another scenario is when Amazon purchases pens and paper from an office depot. In this example, Amazon used the internet to contact the business that sells goods online which can be said to be B2B (Barnes-Vieyra & Claycomb, 2010). This is the most common type of commerce and according to U.S. Census Bureau, it make more than 90% of the total e-commerce (Manchala, 2008). The office depot usually made revenue through direct sales of the product. This type of e-commerce is more complex than B2C where the business advertises goods for sale to customers. There are many platforms where this model can be advertised. Selling business can send catalogs through e-mails to the target market that uses its products (Barnes-Vieyra & Claycomb, 2010).
The final scenario is where I sell my antique lamp to a man from Chicago through e-bay. It is a good example of B2B e-commerce model. The sale of the commodity is facilitated by E-bay (Krishnamurthy, 2002). In this model, the selling individual can market their goods in free classifieds platforms like eBay and Amazon.
In conclusion, each model of e-commerce has a different working mechanism and different advertising platforms. It is important since it is a fast method a customer can get a product for a couple of seconds without necessarily traveling. It enables people to acquire products that they do not have.
References
Barnes-Vieyra, P., & Claycomb, C. (2010). Business-to-business e-commerce: models and managerial decisions. Business Horizons, 13-20.
Krishnamurthy, S. (2002). E-commerce management: Text and cases. South-Western Thomson Learning.
Laudon, K. C., & Carol, G. T. (2007.). E-commerce. Pearson/Addison Wesley.
Manchala, D. W. (2008). E-commerce trust metrics and models. Internet Computing, IEEE, 36-44.
