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Electronic commerce has been divided into four distinct categories.
Business to Consumer commerce, according to Patton (2001, http://www.cio.com/ec/edit/b2cabc.html) “applies to any business or organization that sells its products or services to consumers over the Internet for their own use�?. In other words, it provides a direct sale between the supplier and in the individual consumer.
B2C commerce created much hype when it first took off. The first noticeable success arrived around 1995, where companies like eBay.com and Amazon.com were launched. When the success of these companies took off, many other imitations were born. However, the market turned sour and many of the B2C companies crashed, including Australian company dstore.com.au.
See also E-Commerce - B2C Applications, E-Commerce - Business to Consumer
Business-to-Business involves online transactions between businesses (Thanasankit, 2003, p.152). Examples of B2B include online companies that specialise in marketing strategies, advertising, email companies, internet consultants, website development etc. Also, as an offshoot of these companies, there are various internet resources such as online magazines, including the E-Commerce Times and BtoBOnline.com.
See also E-Commerce - B2B Applications, E-Commerce - Business to Business
Consumer-to-Consumer or Peer-to-Peer is defined as exchanges between/among consumers (McGrawHill, 2002, p.xiv). These exchanges can involve a third-party involvement, which can facilitate and provide the infrastructure, place and governance for the transactions/exchanges. Perhaps the most well known example of this is the online market place, eBay.com. Here consumers can bid for and sell items of any description, for any price. An example of P2P exchanges are file swapping sites/programs, such as Kazaa and eDonkey.
See also E-Commerce - C2C Applications
Consumer-to-Business is when consumers present themselves as a buyer group. Examples of this include CTB and SpeakOut.com. These sites provide consumers with market strategies and businesses also use them to gain insight into consumer wants. These groups may be economically motivated, as with demand aggregators, or socially orientated (McGrawHill, 2002, pxvi).
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