E-Commerce: C2C

E-commerce is a continuously evolving phenomenon. E-Commerce is the process whereby different types of business activities are being carried out through internet and other related technologies with the involvement of trading parties. Indeed, the division of electronic commerce can be trace to Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Business (C2B) and Consumer to Consumer (C2C).

C2C transactions generally involve products sold through a classified or auction system. Products sold are often used or second hand. There are minimal costs involved with the lack of retailers and wholesalers, keeping the margins higher for sellers and prices lower for buyers.

There is also the convenience factor — instead of trying to sell items in person at a brick-and-mortar store, consumers can simply list their products online and wait for the buyers to come to them. Buyers don't need to drive around and search through stores for an item they want — they just have to search for it on a C2C site.

C2C e-commerce can also take place in online communities, chat rooms, third-party consumer listing services, and Web-based discussion forums.

Retailers see it as very important, given the growing use of social media channels by consumers to share their option about specific stock, which often drives increased traffic to stores.

The goal of C2C is to enable buyers and sellers to find each other easily. They benefit in two crucial commerce areas. Firstly, they benefit from competition for product and second, they can easily find products that are otherwise difficult to locate.

Compared to B2C commerce, gaining trust is more complicated when the buyer and seller are both individuals, and with Internet come the disadvantages of anonymity - the potential for fraud or misrepresentation is much greater online than in the physical world. Nevertheless, there are ways of alleviating the trust problem and the success of C2C auction systems is seen to owe a great deal to the development of working reputation systems.
E-Commerce: C2C

Consumer to consumer Business Model

The above type of model facilitates commerce between consumers, plain and simple. Revenue streams are typically fees for matching buyers with sellers and vice versa. Flat fees and commissions may apply.

The most famous consumer to consumer (C2C) company is eBay, the world’s largest personal online trading community, which - for a tiny fee – allows consumers to offer their goods directly to other consumers in auction format.

Ebay contends that its cocktail napkin moment was a conversation between Pierre Omidyar and his wife, who collects Pez dispenser.

She wanted to use internet as a tool to expand her collection, and Pierre expanded that idea to include a central location for the trade of all collectibles and launched eBay on Labor Day in 1995.

Today the secret to eBay’s profitability is volume – insane volume. Individual consumers use eBay to buy and sell in more than 4,320 categories, including automobiles, collectibles, antiques, sports memorabilia, computers, toys, books, magazines, music, pottery and glass, photography, electronics, and jewelry and gemstones.

Buyers are compelled to trade on eBay due to the large numbers of items available. Similarly, sellers flock to eBay because that’s where the most buyers are. As a result, more than 450,000 items are posted for sale in any given day, and eBay collects a fee on each transaction.
Consumer to consumer Business Model