C2C is the common acronym used to describe a relatively new business model known as consumer-to-consumer. Other prominent industry models include business-to-consumer, or B2C, and business-to-business, or B2B. The C2C market has evolved since the late 1990s in large part because of the Internet and e-commerce. In a C2C market, one consumer buys goods from another consumer using a third-party business to facilitate the transaction.
Consumer to consumer (C2C) markets provide an innovative way to allow customers to interact with each other. Traditional markets require business to customer relationships, in which a customer goes to the business in order to purchase a product or service. In customer to customer markets, the business facilitates an environment where customers can sell goods or services to each other. Other types of markets include business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C).
Consumer to consumer (or citizen-to-citizen) electronic commerce involves the electronically facilitated transactions between consumers through some third party. A common example is an online auction, in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it; the third party generally charges a flat fee or commission. The sites are only intermediaries, just there to match consumers. They do not have to check quality of the products being offered.
Consumer to consumer (C2C) marketing is the creation of a product or service with the specific promotional strategy being for consumers to share that product or service with others as brand advocates based on the value of the product. The investment into conceptualising and developing a top of the line product or service that consumers are actively looking for is equitable to a retail pre-launch product awareness marketing.
Advantages
Customer to Customer C2C marketing has become very popular in the recent years. Customers can directly contact sellers and eliminate the middle man. Moreover, anyone can now sell and advertise a product in the convenience of one’s home – enabling one to easily start a business. Therefore, a wide variety of products can often be found on auction sites such as eBay, including second-hand goods.
Since majority of these sales occur over the internet, sellers can reach both national and international customers and greatly increase their market. Feedback on the purchased product is often requested to aid both the seller and potential customers. The actual buying and searching process is simplified and search costs, distribution costs, and inventory costs are all reduced. Moreover, the transactions occur at a swift rate with the use of online payment systems such as PayPal.
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