Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-consumer (B2C) Essay

Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-consumer (B2C) - Essay Example Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-consumer (B2C) are two types of e-businesses found on the Internet. E-commerce is an umbrella term used for all business done online but when close studied there are some technical differences which set of type of business apart from another. B2B is the business where both parties are organizations or companies working with each other for some kind of mutual benefit such as Skillbay.com. An example of this would be industrial suppliers or manufacturers who sell to a business that eventually takes final goods to the customers. Whereas most other sites would fall in the category of B2C since organizations are selling their services or products to consumers. Examples include Amazon.com and Walmart.com.The main difference between a B2B and a B2C is that of who purchases at the other end, whether it's the consumer or a business buyer as defined earlier. The other difference is the complexity of the business-to-business setup as compared to a busi ness to consumer setup. Supply chain management gets involved with in a business-to-business setup making the online process all the more complicated. And then there is also an issue of security that needs special consideration in business to business as compared to the business to consumer e-commerce. The other differences could be the negotiation and integration. Negotiation means bargaining prices and in case of business-to-business selling the most important thing is a negotiation.... While the business to consumer seems very easy as the any online retail store would just has to upload a catalog with prices and specification, the negotiation part involves another complexity within the business to business setup and that is of integration. There needs to be integration between the seller and the buyer system for effective business-to-business e-commerce to take place. At times, the buying company could not integrate with the selling company and vice versa which makes the transaction difficult to handle. Channel integration was also a problem for the business to consumer e-commerce in the earlier phase of e-commerce development as a lot of stores declined to connect their Web companies through the internal back office systems. Many companies rejected in an effort to build up a distinct Web unit and articulated much about the efforts of those who approached them as cannibalization of present sites. However, as it proved it was much of a fear than the actual eating up and companies like the Gap without delay adjusted to the new system in order to let customers do online transactions and in case of any default return the products back to the physical retailer. This opportunity and ease pulled out many fears of the customers of an online shopping system and in turn increased online sales as there could be more effective follow-up system online and the order management would be handled more effectively. This not only gave confidence to the online shopper but also increased the value of th e products and services they purchased. There are various ethical and legal regulations to follow when these businesses are started. Like any other business, online organizations have a responsibility towards their clients and this includes