C2C e-commerce in Depth

Consumer-to-consumer e-commerce or C2C is simply commerce between private individuals or consumers. This type of e-commerce is characterized by the growth of electronic marketplaces and online auctions, particularly in vertical industries where firms/businesses can bid for what they want from among multiple suppliers.16 It perhaps has the greatest potential for developing new markets.

This type of e-commerce comes in at least three forms:

• auctions facilitated at a portal, such as eBay, which allows online real-time bidding on items being sold in the Web;
• peer-to-peer systems, such as the Napster model (a protocol for sharing files between users used by chat forums similar to IRC) and other file exchange and later money exchange models; and
• classified ads at portal sites such as Excite Classifieds and eWanted (an interactive,online marketplace where buyers and sellers can negotiate and which features “Buyer Leads & Want Ads”).

B2G e-Commerce in Depth

Business-to-government e-commerce or B2G is generally defined as commerce between companies and the public sector. It refers to the use of the Internet for public procurement, licensing procedures, and other government-related operations. This kind of e-commerce has two features: first, the public sector assumes a pilot/leading role in establishing e-commerce; and second, it is assumed that the public sector has the greatest need for making its procurement system more effective. Web-based purchasing policies increase the transparency of the procurement process (and reduces the risk of irregularities). To date, however, the size of the B2G ecommerce market as a component of total e-commerce is insignificant, as government e-procurement systems remain undeveloped.

B2C e-commerce in Depth

Business-to-consumer e-commerce, or commerce between companies and consumers, involves customers gathering information; purchasing physical goods (i.e., tangibles such as books or consumer products) or information goods (or goods of electronic material or digitized content, such as software, or e-books); and, for information goods, receiving products over an electronic network.It is the second largest and the earliest form of e-commerce. Its origins can be traced to online retailing (or e-tailing).13 Thus, the more common B2C business models are the online retailing companies such as Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Beyond.com, Barnes and Noble and ToysRus. Other B2C examples involving information goods are E-Trade and Travelocity.

The more common applications of this type of e-commerce are in the areas of purchasing products and information, and personal finance management, which pertains to the management of personal investments and finances with the use of online banking tools (e.g., Quicken). eMarketer estimates that worldwide B2C e-commerce revenues will increase from US$59.7 billion in 2000 to US$428.1 billion by 2004. Online retailing transactions make up a significant share of this market. eMarketer also estimates that in the Asia-Pacific region, B2C revenues, while registering a modest figure compared to B2B,nonetheless went up to $8.2 billion by the end of 2001, with that figure doubling at the end of 2002-at total worldwide B2C sales below 10%.

B2C e-commerce reduces transactions costs (particularly search costs) by increasing consumer access to information and allowing consumers to find the most competitive price for a product or service. B2C e-commerce also reduces market entry barriers since the cost of putting up and maintaining a Web site is much cheaper than installing a “brick-and-mortar” structure for a firm. In the case of information goods, B2C e-commerce is even more attractive because it saves firms from factoring in the additional cost of a physical distribution network. Moreover, for countries with a growing and robust Internet population, delivering information goods becomes increasingly feasible.

B2B e-commerce in Depth

B2B e-commerce is simply defined as e-commerce between companies. This is the
type of e-commerce that deals with relationships between and among businesses.About 80% of e-commerce is of this type, and most experts predict that B2B ecommerce will continue to grow faster than the B2C segment.

The B2B market has two primary components: e-frastructure and e-markets. Efrastructure
is the architecture of B2B, primarily consisting of the following:

● logistics - transportation, warehousing and distribution (e.g., Procter and Gamble);
● application service providers - deployment, hosting and management of packaged
software from a central facility (e.g., Oracle and Linkshare);
● outsourcing of functions in the process of e-commerce, such as Web-hosting,
security and customer care solutions (e.g., outsourcing providers such as
eShare, NetSales, iXL Enterprises and Universal Access);
● auction solutions software for the operation and maintenance of real-time auctions
in the Internet (e.g., Moai Technologies and OpenSite Technologies);
● content management software for the facilitation of Web site content management
and delivery (e.g., Interwoven and ProcureNet); and
● Web-based commerce enablers (e.g., Commerce One, a browser-based, XMLenabled
purchasing automation software).

E-markets are simply defined as Web sites where buyers and sellers interact with
each other and conduct transactions.

The more common B2B examples and best practice models are IBM, Hewlett Packard (HP), Cisco and Dell. Cisco, for instance, receives over 90% of its product orders over the Internet.

Most B2B applications are in the areas of supplier management (especially purchase
order processing), inventory management (i.e., managing order-ship-billcycles), distribution management (especially in the transmission of shipping documents),channel management (i.e., information dissemination on changes in operational conditions), and payment management (e.g., electronic payment systems or EPS)

(5) G2C – Government to Citizen

This Model is also a part of e-governance.

The objective of this model is to provide good and effective services to each citizen.

The Government provides the following facilities to the citizens through website.

Ø Information of all government departments,

Ø Different welfare schemes,

Ø Different application forms to be used by the citizens.

The Gujarat Government has developed his own network called Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN) for the same purpose mentioned above.

A typical example of this model is GSWAN.

http://gswan.gov.in

The above web site contains the link of different government departments, so any citizen can know and get the information by this website.

(4)G2B – Government to Business

This Model is a part of e-governance.

Under this Model all the information and services are provided by the Government to the Business Organizations through vast network of government websites.

A Business Organization can get the information about business rules, requirement and permission needed for starting a new business, and other specifications.

A Business Organization can also download the different forms and submit it online or offline to the related office.

For Example:

http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in provides all the rules related to Tax, different forms, and facility for submission of online tax returns.

(3) C2C – Customer to Customer

For the Last few years this model has also become very famous.

Under this Model customer directly contacts with each other without involvement of third party business organization, a business organization works as agent/mediator only.

An online Auction is a very good example of C2C Model

For Example:

http://www/eBay.com

http://www.fabmart.com