B2C is also known as Business to Consumer and is probably the most common eCommerce model out there. These are sites like Amazon.com, Zappos.com and smaller web sites that sell products, services and even information to you and me.
This is a relatively simple business model at first glance – put up a website, add some products, do some marketing, Harry and Jane come to the site, choose their item, check out, pay and it gets shipped. Maybe it was simple several years ago but not anymore.
Now the web is rich with competition and many different advertising and marketing methods. Not only does your whole site have to be constructed with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind, it also needs to be graphically interesting, completely usable, and securely functional and your products and service needs to stand up to the competition.
Huge companies like Amazon have not only cornered the market on products, but also on incorporating user behavior, likes and dislikes. I can go on to Amazon right now and they will show me the cookbooks I might like, the newest family videos for my daughter and the books from my favorite authors without me having to even log in. They send me emails when things I might like go on sale or are newly released. When I want to look for the right Indian cookbook to incorporate into my library, I can compare the user reviews to see which best suits my needs.
Their partner programs with other sites like Borders not only make it easy for me to shop and find everything I need, but I have confidence that my credit card and account information are secure because they are huge and experts on this stuff.
Small sites can have trouble competing with the big budget technology and the safety and security associated with a company like Amazon but it can be done. For instance, I love supporting small business because I have one, so I’ll specifically go out and find niche sites that sell handmade baby accessories, graphic t shirts, crafts and even shoes. The sites I go to again and again aren’t the giant ones because I like to be a little different and these sites market to me because of that.
These sites do answer my needs, with easy to use navigation, good look and feel, excellent product descriptions and customer service and an easy to use checkout funnel but they are not “big” by any means. We’ll discuss the technology that can offer you the best bang for your buck, including pricing rules, inventory availability and high quality images. We’ll even talk about the pie in the sky technologies debuted across the web by the big boys, but I want to underscore in this article that being bigger isn’t the only way to win.
I see a change in the market, where some people are sick of hitting the mall and seeing the same stuff in every store. They don’t like the hard sale, maybe they don’t even like the environment in the mall and they want to stand out and be cool – and you can’t do that if you look just like everyone else out there.
After all, shopping from your home PC, or more likely from your work PC is the easiest shopping of all. You can cover ten stores in just a few minutes rather than driving, parking, walking, browsing and moving from store to store. You can multi task, on the phone for work, putting in face time at the office and still finding the right gift for your father's birthday, all at the same time. It may not be what your boss wants you doing, but let's just all be realistic, shall we?
There are also people who respect the entrepreneurial spirit and a lot of them are willing to spend the extra buck to be an individual or to find just the right thing rather than spending money on a bunch of generic junk.
It is to these people that niche marketing is targeted. The “mommy bloggers” are a great example of this revolution. They constantly find cool websites, cool products and cool ideas and then they write about them and link to them, perpetuating the web and unwittingly supporting SEO in the most natural and organic way possible.
They also support each other, sharing “linky love” and commenting frequently on each other’s blogs, which in turn drives traffic and perpetuates all of these mini-businesses. This is virtual community marketing in its purest form. These women are all different and face different challenges but they have found their niche and they are creating business and having a good time simultaneously. In fact, one group of women founded a website specifically about sites and products they all love and that is the kind of marketing and endorsement you just can’t pay for.
Small sites in the B2C space need to differentiate themselves in the market through branding, specialized products, smart marketing and site promotion and solid eCommerce technology. Using their community is key and engaging in that community is the first step towards success.
A lot of topics in the B2C marketplace crossover with topics in B2B and subtopics like whether you carry inventory, are Just In Time (JIT), or if you have drop ship relationships all change how you do business in subtle ways. We’ll talk about a lot of different challenges and you’ll find great anecdotal information in our From the Trenches section of the site.