E-Business Model

e-Business Model

The rapid growth of e-commerce on the Internet has created a challenge for traditional bricks and mortar businesses. Businesses must now change their focus about their own business models, target market, products, and services, and ultimately their own benefits. This paper will compare and contrast the business models of a business to business (B2B), a business to customer (B2C), and a customer to customer (C2C). The Internet

Capital Group (ICG) was selected to represent a B2B. The company was started in March of 1996, and its main purpose is to act as an online business exchange for finance and technology (ICG, n.d.). Amazon.com was selected to represent a B2C organization, and eBay was selected as the C2C.

In any business model it is important to know your target audience. In the e-commerce arena the target market expands due to the global influences of the Internet. However, several factors remain the same. In a B2B the customer will always be another business with the necessary financial resources available to them. It will be highly unlikely that a B2B will attract impulse buyers on the Internet. B2C will find their target audiences globally as will C2C. The target audience for these two business models is any customer that has Internet access. An important aspect that all three business models need to consider is do they really want to do business on an international level. A B2C that offers a service may not be able to provide services outside the U.S. or even outside their own local area. This is not the case for the selected companies as Amazon.com and eBay both conduct business internationally.

What products are these companies offering to their target audience? ICG as the B2B model sells a service to other B2B companies. They offer operational support to help build companies in their specific markets. The operational support can be in the form of software or services that can help companies harness the power of e-commerce to improve efficiencies and cost saving (ICG, n.d.). Amazon.com as the representative of a B2C sells books, DVDs, toys, games, apparel, electronics, and much more. Amazon.com has become the place for one click shopping. Amazon is even dappling in the C2C arena by allowing customers to sell their own books and miscellaneous items on their site. Amazon takes a small cut of the selling price and sends the rest to the customer. The C2C, eBay, has been criticized, during the earth shattering stock prices of the late 90s for not really selling anything. They are the ultimate C2C; eBay provides the site for customers to auction off items as varied as jewelry to “Virgin Mary” cheese sandwiches. It also provides the means of making secured payments with their partnering with PayPal.

In the B2B model used by ICG, its web site is purely used to gather information about the company and its partners. Its website is simple, designed with conservative tones of blue and gray colors that inspire professionalism. An interesting company information link is the “In the Spotlight” section that links audience members with the partner or department of ICG in order to provide more information about each one (ICG, n.d.).

Amazon’s website is so packed which features it practically grabs the audience by the collar to hold them their. As of the date of this paper, a potential customer could see clips of several up coming movies through its “Amazon Theater”. Amazon’s website includes many features that have help the company become one of the best B2C models. The website includes wish list, shopping carts, product information, and personalization. Amazon’s personalization service offers a unique service in which other items are offered to the customer upon check out. In addition, Amazon’s membership services can e-mail book reviews or product information to customers on any subject or products of their choice (Amazon.com, n.d.).

The C2C, eBay website offers eye-catching colors with many features to attract customers to the site. It offers membership services, product information with pictures, and even has a “Learn about eBay” tour with graphics and sound so audience members do not have to read the instructions (eBay.com, 2004). The site also contains an expanded help section which can guide customers through a purchase. This easy to use website is easily one of the reasons eBay has become the “marketplace for the world” (eBay.com, 2004)

The B2C and the C2C businesses discussed in this paper market themselves very similarity. Amazon.com has partnered themselves with other well-known companies, such as Target in order to capture a larger audience. Both Amazon and eBay however, depend on word of mouth advertisement for much of there first time business. It is that reason why building customer loyalty is the fore front of the B2Cs and C2Cs.