Business to Business (B2B) business Model

A website following the B2B business model sells its products to an intermediate buyer who then sells the products to the final customer. As an example, a wholesaler places an order from a company’s website and after receiving the consignment, it sells the end product to the final customer who comes to buy the product at the wholesaler’s retail outlet.

B2B identifies both the seller as well as the buyer as business entities. B2B covers a large number of applications, which enables business to form relationships with their distributors, re-sellers, suppliers, etc. Following are the leading items in B2B eCommerce.

• Electronics
• Shipping and Warehousing
• Motor Vehicles
• Petrochemicals
• Paper
• Office products
• Food
• Agriculture

Key Technologies

Following are the key technologies used in B2B e-commerce:

• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): EDI is an inter-organizational exchange of business documents in a structured and machine processable format.
• Internet: Internet represents the World Wide Web or the network of networks connecting computers across the world.
• Intranet: Intranet represents a dedicated network of computers within a single organization.
• Extranet: Extranet represents a network where the outside business partners, suppliers, or customers can have a limited access to a portion of enterprise intranet/network.
• Back-End Information System Integration: Back-end information systems are database management systems used to manage the business data.

Architectural Models

Following are the architectural models in B2B e-commerce:

• Supplier oriented marketplace: In this type of model, a common marketplace provided by supplier is used by both individual customers as well as business users. A supplier offers an e-stores for sales promotion.
• Buyer oriented marketplace: In this type of model, buyer has his/her own market place or e-market. He invites suppliers to bid on product’s catalog. A Buyer company opens a bidding site.
• Intermediary Oriented marketplace: In this type of model, an intermediary company runs a market place where business buyers and sellers can transact with each other.