Comparison of B2B and B2C E-commerce

	B2C	B2B (direct purchasing)	Implications for B2B
Number of participants in market	Many	Few	Bulk of potential customers may be known. Switching costs for buyers may be high.
Number of people involved in purchasing process	Few	Many	“Automation” of buying process should take into account work flow.
Level of customer’s product expertise	Usually fairly low	Usually fairly high	Customer may demand certain product specifications.
Number of transactions	High	Low	Customer interface may not have to be integrated with back-end order/sales system in real time.
$ Value of transactions	Low	High	Sales process may include price negotiation.
Important buying decision criteria	Price Perceived quality Availability	Availability Quality Price Likelihood of long-term relationship	Customers must reduce risk of not having raw materials, shipping and delivery are important ways to manage inventory costs.
Sales process	May be conducted completely online	Often face-to-face interaction needed, online transactions occur once relationship is established.	Online presence may be how customers find out about you, but between this and the sales transaction, trust may be built using face-to-face communication.
Methods of understanding customers	Traditional consumer research, analysis of web logs (clickstreams)	Sales force gathers information, web log (clickstream) analysis	The smaller the number of customers, the more personal interaction defines product offerings and web functionality.
Integration of systems with customer	Low or none	Potentially high	Complexity of implementation rises sharply when customer wants to integrate his systems with yours.
Fulfillment	Usually single shipment	Often multiple shipments on demand or schedule	Shipment details may be determined offline.
Payment	Credit card, PayPal	(Purchase order, invoice, check), EDI, corp. purchase card	EBPP systems may need to be implemented