Business - to - Business (B2B)

B2B is that ebusiness model in which a company conducts its trading and other commercial activity through the internet and the customer is another business itself.Website following B2B business model sells its product to an intermediate buyer who then sells the product to the final customer.B2B implies that seller as well as buyer is business entity.Some of the leading items in B2B e-Commerce are Electronics, Shipping and Warehousing, Motor Vehicles, Petrochemicals, Paper, Office products, Food, Agriculture.

The major advantages of B2B are as follwos;

• Direct interaction with customer.
• Focussed sales promotion
• Building customer loyalty
• Scalability
• Savings in distribution costs

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 process compatible format.
• Internet − Internet represents world wide web or 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 outside business partners, supplier or customers can have 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.

The B2B ecommerce is further classified depending on who controls the marketplace: the buyer, the supplier or the intermediary.

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.