B2C and B2B Web Site Supply Chain Differences
Ah, the wonders that technology has wrought in the world of business. Or should it be phrased: ah, the wonders that business has called forth from the world of technology? Whether it is the chicken or the egg, many changes have developed and with the advancements in what is now called e-business, businesses and consumers have benefited.
Though e-businesses vary in scope and methods, they can be categorized basically as business-to-consumer (B2C) or a business-to-business (B2B). A B2B model involves transactions between one business and another business. A B2C model involves transactions between a business and individual consumers. The term B2C could be applied to any business or organization selling products/services over the Internet to consumers for their own use. These two categories reflect the external view of e-commerce sites, but a business-to-consumer site could well be described as the end point of a business-to-business?to-consumer supply chain (Patton, S. 2004, The ABCs of B2C).
A company that sells its finished product to consumers on the World Wide Web would be involved in B2C electronic commerce. In addition, when that same company uses the Web to purchase the materials used in the manufacture of its products from other companies that would be B2B electronic commerce or e-procurement-and that is the really big business of e-business. It often requires an entire department to negotiate purchase transactions with suppliers (Patton, 2004).
Schneider refers to the size differences thusly: "In terms of dollar volume and number of transactions, B2B electronic commerce is much greater than B2C electronic commerce. However, the number of supporting business processes is greater than the number of a ...