Understanding Different Types of E-commerce Websites

When most people hear of the word e-commerce, they mistakenly think it is only about a company selling goods to a consumer online. That is far from the truth. There are different types of e-commerce websites, and they all work in unique ways.

Business to Business (B2B)

This type of website is for businesses that sell to other businesses. Simply put, it is a transaction between two companies. An example of this would be a computer making business sourcing for metal from a production house that deals with metal.

These sites might not have as many visitors on their site on a daily basis, but they still get to sell a lot of products because their customers buy in bulk. Undoubtedly a good example of a business to business website is Alibaba, where vendors sell to other vendors who are looking for bulk items.

Business to Customer (B2C)

This is the type of website where people who do online shopping are likely to go to. As the name suggests, the customer goes to the business website to buy goods or services. There are many Business to Customer websites and those that have gotten their marketing strategy right, are likely to get higher traffic than your competitors.

Customer to Customer (C2C)

These types of eCommerce websites are for customers to sell to each other. The products being sold do not have to be new. There are eCommerce websites such as Olx and eBay allow users to trade used products. The customers are in charge of everything in some cases, including shipping and ensuring their safety during a transaction and the company does not have liability.

Vendor Specific Websites

These are the kind of eCommerce websites that sells products that belong to only one vendor. One of the sites that has done this well is Unibet that specialises on online betting. From the reviews, you can see that it is rated high and it attracts a large number of people. Vendor-specific products do not display products or links to other websites. They get relatively lower traffic compared to B2Cs.

Online Retailers Using Premium Sellers

For this kind of eCommerce, think of online retailers like Amazon. These sites allow vendors and other retailers to sell on their website, but these websites must are vetted and approved by them. So, it ends up having a select type of retailer. They do this to ensure that they remain trusted and are in control of the products and brands they are associated with. They set up terms and conditions to ensure the retailers they are working with maintain a certain standard.

Single Products Websites

These are websites that come up to specifically sell one product and nothing else. For instance, if they are selling a brand of green tea, they will not venture out and add other products. Most of the single products websites always have the name of the product as part of their domain to establish the brand and attract more customers.

Online Marketplace

In these websites, everyone is a seller. An example is eBay and Craigslist, where as long as you have a product, you can set up and account and start selling. Even though these websites receive a good amount of traffic, they are not considered trustworthy by shoppers, since the websites rarely take liability in case of loss.