The e-commerce sector has been touted by several sources as one of the most lucrative market/trade channels today. Because of its capacity to bring together many people very quickly, it now constitutes a global marketplace within reach of an unlimited number of buyers, sellers, and every other party.
To become a significant player in the e-commerce space, consider launching your career with the ACS in E-Commerce training program at Cumberland College. In this blog, we discuss five business models in e-commerce that you may be interested in during your e-commerce career.
E-Commerce, Explained
E-commerce is a business model characterized by selling and purchasing products, services, and other things over the Internet. The value-providing party and the consumer broadly facilitate e-commerce businesses. By combining the different iterations of this value flow, we arrive at the various e-commerce business models in use today.
We’ll discuss five of these business models shortly, but if you would like to gain further insight into this subject and the general e-commerce sector, Cumberland College’s ACS in E-commerce offers several comprehensive e-commerce courses to do justice to that.
Here are five business models in e-commerce you should know about after e-commerce training:
1. Business-To-Consumer (B2C)
In the Business-to-Consumer model, businesses sell their products/services directly to the consumers and other outright end-users. It is the traditional and most popular business model, providing low entry costs, short cycles, and a clear target market.
Amazon and Walmart are just a few businesses whose operations fit this model’s narratives. And because there’s almost always no intermediary in this e-commerce transaction, the market experiences massive transaction flows, quick turnovers, and low processing costs.
2. Business-To-Business (B2B)
In this model, a business offers its products or services to another business. The business that buys the product or service could be the end-user themself, or they could buy with the intent to resell to the final consumer. You may learn digital skills with the ACS in the e-commerce program to help you fit in more efficiently as a professional.
This is why most B2B transactions’ sales cycle is typically longer. An example is regular manufacturer-to-wholesaler transactions, such as with a cement depot or a construction company buying bags of cement from the product manufacturer.
3. Consumer-To-Consumer (C2C)
In this e-commerce business model, individuals market their products or services to other individuals. An example is the sale of gift cards on eBay. In this case, the buying party could be the end-user, or they may resell the purchased product to another user. The transactions in this model are marked by their short processing times (and quick turnovers) due to the reduced formalities.
Through interactive practical projects, students may broaden their knowledge, get more familiar with the most beneficial professional tools, and establish industry best practices thanks to our innovative teaching approach, which mixes theory and practice.
4. Business-To-Government (B2G)
A company sells its products and services to government agencies and other state-run institutions. The government agency may be at the federal, state, county, or local level, and large volumes and contractual obligations broadly characterize the transactions.
A typical example is the Ministry of Education putting out an invitation to tender for the supply of computers to schools in a district. Dell becomes the seller business in the B2G transaction if its bid to get the contract to supply this equipment is accepted.
5. Consumer-To-Business (C2B)
In this model, individuals are the primary value providers to a business as opposed to the traditional business model. These individuals may trade their products, skills, services, or information to other businesses for monetary or non-monetary compensation.
Third-party agents usually facilitate transactions in this model in exchange for a fee or commission. The ease of setup, increased flexibility, and independence afforded the seller in this model make it one of the most rewarding e-commerce business models. An example of this model is with freelancers who, for example, may design a website for a client business.
Are you interested in launching your e-commerce career?
Contact Cumberland College to learn how you can get started!
