Consumer-to-consumer e-commerce or C2C is simply commerce between private individuals or consumers.
Example: – Mary buying an iPod from Tom on eBay – Me selling a car to my neighbor
Website following C2C business model helps consumer to sell their assets like residential property, cars, motorcycles etc. or rent a room by publishing their information on the website. Website may or may not charge the consumer for its services. Another consumer may opt to buy the product of the first customer by viewing the post/advertisement on the website.
consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
Consumers sell directly to other consumers
Example of Consumer to Consumer (C2C) Model
Let us take an example of E-Bay. When a customer plan to sell his products to other customers on the Website of E-Bay, he first needs to interact with an E-Bay site, which in this case acts as a facilitator of the overall transaction. Then, the seller can host his product on www.E-Bay.in which in turn charges him for this.
Any buyer can now browse the site of E-Bay to search for the product he interested in. If the buyer comes across such a product, he places an order for the same on the Web site of E-Bay. EBay now purchase the product from the seller and then, sells it to the buyer. In this way, though the transaction is between two customers, an organization acts as an interface between the two organizations.
Examples of C2C websites:
1) Craigslist: Craigslist is one of the top websites in the world and the leading service for classified ads. Consumers can not only buy, sell and trade items, but also conduct other transactions such as housing and job searches.
2) E-Bay: E-Bay is a global online shopping and auction website that offers millions of consumers a wide variety of goods and services. Sellers pay a fee or commission to sell their items and buyers can shop and make purchases for free. Buyers place bids just like in a traditional auction and only acquire an item if they are the highest bidder. Monetary transactions are typically completed through PayPal, a service for online money transfers.
Once a transaction is complete, buyers and sellers can rate each other based on their trustworthiness.
2) Examples of other C2C websites:
• www.olx.in (internet classified)
• www.carwale.com (internet classified)
• www.gaadi.com (internet classified)
Key features of a C2C model:
1) Consumers interact directly with other consumers. They exchange information such as :
- Expert knowledge where one person asks a question about anything and gets an email reply from the community of other individuals.
- Opinions about companies and products
2) There is also an exchange of goods between people both with consumer auction sites such as e-bay, swapitshop.com, where individuals swap goods with each other without the exchange of money.
3) In more recent times the blogging phenomenon has incorporated this business model well. The development of online communities with specific niche interests can gain huge followings. Most current C2C sites, such as E-Bay, have both streamlined and globalised traditional person-to-person trading, which was usually conducted through such forms as garage sales, collectibles shows, flea markets and more, with their web interface. This facilities easy exploration for buyers and enables the sellers to immediately list an item for sale within minutes of registering.
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4) C2C sites make money by charging fees to sellers. Although it’s free to shop and place bids, sellers place fees to list items for sale, add on promotional features, and successfully complete transactions.
Advantages and disadvantages of C2C Model:
Advantages:
- Customers can directly contact sellers and eliminate the middle man.
- Anyone can now sell and advertise a product in the convenience of one’s home.
- Sellers can reach both national and international customers and greatly increase their market.
- Feedback on the purchased product helps both the seller and potential customers.
- The transactions occur at a swift rate with the use of online payments systems such as paypal.
Disadvantages
- Although online auctions allow one to display his or her products, there is often a fee associated with such exhibitions. Other times, websites may charge a commission when products are sold. With the growing use of online auctions, the number of internet-related auction frauds has also increased.
- Identity theft has become a rising issue. Scam artists often create sites with popular domain names such as “e bay “ in order to attract unknowing E-Bay customers. These sites will ask for personal information including credit card numbers. Numerous cases have been documented in which users find unknown charges on their credit card statements and withdrawals in their bank statements after purchasing something online.
- Illegal or restricted products and services have been found on auction sites. Anything from illegal drugs, pirated works have appeared on such sites.
Titany answered the question on
September 23, 2021 at 11:35