E-commerce is a way of selling and buying products through the Internet. In the digital world, if you run a small business offline, you need to move on to the eCommerce platform for the growth of your business online. And you get a wide range of audience to visit your Store to buy the products online. In this article, we will clearly explain what is e-commerce, and the types of e-commerce models.
What is E-commerce?
In the digital world, E-Commerce is the fastest-growing platform because they no need for any physical stores to sell the products. It’s fully based on the Internet. So it saves a lot of time and money. List your products on an online store. Customers are arriving from worldwide to purchase the product using mobile devices and social media platforms.
Types of E-commerce
E-commerce is divided into multiple types based on how transactions happen between sellers and buyers.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C): Business-to-consumer is the fastest growing model in e-commerce platforms because products are directly sold to the consumers without any intermediate person.
Amazon and Flipkart are the best examples of B2C because the product consumers need directly go to the website and purchase it with no intermediate person this business process is made with sellers and buyers. It’s also called a retail business.
Business-to-Business (B2B): In the B2B process, consumers are not involved because the deals between business to business, like wholesale. B2B business models are applied in large-scale industries for example, they purchase raw materials from one company to make their own products in another company. After making the products, it’s sold to the retailer this time B2C will applied. So it can be overlapped sometimes based on the industries.
Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C): When C2C occurs, the products or services transfer from consumers to consumers through the online platform. No middleman interaction both are consumers, and anyone can sell or buy the products. Examples are eBay, Amazon market platform, PayPal, and Etsy, etc.
Consumer-to-Business (C2B): Businesses are run between consumer to business. For example, Google AdSense is the best example for C2B because they run the advertisement on a blog and they pay money for placing the ad on a website. Freelancing and customer reviews are also applicable to the C2B business model.
These four business models are majorly used in e-commerce platforms nowadays.
Advantages of E-commerce
E-commerce provides various benefits for users, and some advantages are listed here
Ease of access: Customers can access the online store 24/7 through mobile devices anywhere in the world. And they avoid physical traveling to stores.
Multiple Selections: Online stores list the multiple products compared to the physical Store. It gives choice for customers to choose the right product to buy.
Get the best deals: Consumers find the best deals in online stores because they compare the prices from different stores and identify the best deals to buy.
Customer Reviews: Customers can post reviews and ratings for their purchased products in the online store. And it’s helpful for new customers to buy that product to make the right decision.
Cost reduction: The cost of the online store is Low compared to the physical store and no maintenance like rental price, electricity, and staff salary. So you save a lot of money compared to the physical store.
Personalization: The E-Commerce platform improves your shopping experience and provides recommended products based on the user data previously users searched.
E-commerce is a way of improving your business online and you have various benefits. So if you have any business, just move on to the eCommerce platform to grow your business internet.
Disadvantages of E-commerce
Although you get more benefits from using an E-Commerce platform, you face some disadvantages.
Security issues: When starting a new online store, the first thing that comes to mind is security issues because low-security websites lead to cyber-attacks and data breaches. All e-commerce transactions are based on online, so user data is important to protect.
Lack of Personal Touch: In the online store, you feel the product visually only not physically, which is one of the main disadvantages of e-commerce. You can’t feel the value of a product compared to a physical Store.
Delivery issues: When you place the order in the online store, it is a simple process, but after the placement of the order managing the delivery process is very complex because some products are not delivered on time, and some other products get returned, so it’s hard to manage the delivery process.
Technical Issues: Sometimes websites suddenly crash or face some technical issues, that time sales are drop and customers not satisfied. If you start a new online store, you need to have basic technical knowledge for maintaining the eCommerce website.
Conclusion
If you start a new online store, you must know about what is e-commerce, the advantages and disadvantages of e-commerce, and understand how they work. We hope this article is very helpful to you in getting knowledge about E-Commerce and its types, so stay tuned to get detailed knowledge about e-commerce in later articles.
See Also: Best Web Hosting for E-Commerce Sites