With the advancement of technology nowadays, people are becoming more internet savvy. Moreover, a large group of buyers like to shop online instead of visiting the offline store. In such a situation, a new type of business medium has emerged.
We all know about it, i.e. e-commerce. It has started to contribute a great deal to the business sector. According to a recent study in 2020, it has observed that even within such a pandemic situation, the growth of e-commerce has got a good improvement. The total growth percentage has gone up to 14.5% in the UK only.
Besides, it does not limit only to consumers and buyers. Well, they are the common users. Apart from them, this e-commerce sector is also helping different business entities to get more valuable clients. Experts used to divide the entire e-commerce industry based on participants.
What is e-commerce?
It is a business platform where buyers and sellers join to perform selling and buying activities. This is ultimately an intangible medium where both the parties meet over the web. There is no requirement for a physical meeting.
However, different sellers and product manufacturing companies used to represent the image of goods. Group of buyers who find it convenient used to join this medium through the internet. As a result, the act of purchase takes place when a buyer like any of the product and clicks on ‘Buy Now.
This is the widespread usage of e-commerce. At the very initial stage, the function of e-commerce was limited to this. However, with the evolving system, now e-commerce is also offering an attractive platform to business entities.
Many companies who are in search of worthy clients can quickly get by using this e-commerce medium. Due to such an attractive platform, it becomes easy to find out right client to add extra value to the company. Besides, the facility of mobile commerce also comes inevitably along with e-commerce.
Different types of e-commerce
As mentioned depending upon the types of users, this entire industry of e-commerce has been divided into 7 parts. All of them construct this sector. Without its participant, this platform is nothing. So, let us know all about its divisions.
1. B2B
The full form of B2B is Business-to-Business. It is one of the commonest types of e-commerce type. Generally, B2B takes place between two companies. It could be a manufacturing company and a reselling company, or it could also occur between retailers and wholesalers.
Through B2B transactions, the bulk of goods sold or bought. Compared to other countries, this particular type of e-commerce got much popularity in the UK. Many business entities during a pandemic are using this platform to find valuable clients.
2. B2C
Business-to-Consumer is one of the most popular types of e-commerce where familiar buyers surf as much as possible to get the best deals on purchase. Buyers are now giving preference to online shopping rather than offline stores. Moreover, because of pandemics, this demand has grown to a great extent.
3. Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce)
Mobile commerce is derived due to the maximum usage of smartphones. Nowadays, buyers need not wait for buying a desktop or laptop to access the internet. The relatively high-speed internet connection can be easily accessible through mobile phones.
This gives birth to M-Commerce. It is almost like B2C e-commerce, but here the medium is the mobile phone. However, it contributes a lot to e-commerce, e.g. in 2017, M-commerce had contributed 35.4%, which rise to 53.9% and gave good growth to the entire e-commerce industry.
4. C2C
High demand of goods through web marketing creates such consumer-to-consumer e-commerce. It is more like a service than a business transaction. For this reason it may seem quiet unimportant to e-commerce business but it has great importance.
Generally, in C2C a company is eager to serve consumers by helping them to make payment, sending their goods to their houses, communicating with buyers and sellers etc. Actually, it works like a gateway between consumer and seller.
5. C2B
Consumer-to-Business is an entirely different type of e-commerce. Usually, C2B works in an entirely converse process. A consumer takes a picture of the product and uses it to sell on behalf of the company.
After approving the picture, the consumer can get permission to sell, collect a payment, and credit it to the company’s account.
6. B2A
The full form of B2A is Business-to-Administration. Sometimes it is known as B2G too. When a company sells the product of the Government on their own website, it is called B2A.
To sell Government manufactured products, a company must have to pay taxes to the administration. However, the seller can’t over hike the price of the product more than Government stipulated price.
7. C2A
Consumer-to-administration occurs when a consumer pays for a parking area or even applies for a lost ID card or even for lots of government documents. By paying necessary Government fees, a citizen proves his loyalty and completes the purchase. However, it only comes under the count when the money is paid over online medium.
Advantages of e-commerce
There are so many reasons to shift your offline business to e-commerce. Gradually, to shift the company entirely from offline store to online, a businessman needs little funds. Well, if you wish to take out long term loans for bad credit with no guarantor facility, then there will be no fund issue.
Undoubtedly, e-commerce serves ample facility to a seller. Here are some advantages,
1. Exposure to the world
Unless and until you are unable to get global access, the chance of flourishing in business is really low. You can hardly scale up the growth with some limited buyers. Therefore, you need to look for that golden opportunity to get global exposure.
E-commerce brings you the scope. When you register the company on any e-commerce website, it will provide you with a global market. On the other hand, the chance of earning foreign currency is quite simple to earn.
2. Know the mind of consumers
It says all are in mind. So, being the company owner, if you can know what is going on inside the mind of target consumers, it will no longer remain hard to make a profit. Most e-commerce websites are SEO and PPC based which help to track the insights of consumers.
Whenever a consumer visits the web page of a particular company, it will track that person’s activity. In this way, a business entity can understand what is going on inside the mind of the buyers.
3. Prompt response to consumer query
The one and only reason for such ongoing popularity of e-commerce is the highly effective communication system. As the entire commination process takes place in real-time, there requires a second to complete the whole communication. On the other hand, companies can open up with queries round the clock.
Therefore, whenever a buyer visits such e-commerce websites, they can quickly drop their query on FAQ section. Many upgraded selling websites also introduced Artificial Intelligence to answer queries promptly. All these are hardly possible through offline stores.
4. Reduces the cost of marketing
E-commerce is such a platform that eases the buyers, and on the other hand, it minimises the expenses of sellers. Do you know how? The process may seem quite expensive initially, but it is like a one-time investment.
To shift your entire business from offline to online, you may have to spend a good amount of money on setting up a website or purchase a hosting web service. Besides, you need a marketing expert in the beginning too. But all of these are like one-time expenditures.
After setting up everything, you hardly need to pay a single penny for marketing or web designing. Therefore, it reduces the cost of marketing largely. Meanwhile, if you are postponing the plan to enrol in e-commerce due to funds, borrow loans with no guarantor.
5. Get huge opportunity to sell
Undoubtedly, e-commerce offers different types of selling platforms. Business entities can quickly meet various clients as well as other companies. During B2B e-commerce, you can get the chance to find out another business entity.
It may be a retailer or a wholesaler to whom you can approach for bulk purchase. Besides, many resellers may contact you for new opportunities. Therefore, you can see that there are many more partnership opportunities when you shift the business from offline to e-commerce.
6. Personalize offers for registered consumer
Do you know why buyers love e-commerce platforms a lot? This is because they get offers as per their requirement. Generally, sellers have the ease to provide their registered buyers with special offers.
Gradually, to be eligible for such attractive offers, many buyers will complete their registration. More registration increases the amount of revenue.
Thus, e-commerce is not at all a new thing in the market. Instead, the usage of this easy-to-access platform is quite well-known to buyers. Therefore, to enhance the company’s growth and earn high revenue, every company should shift their business to e-commerce.
There are 7 different types of e-commerce based on various buyers and sellers. It serves great benefits to every single business entity.
