Ever been out with your friends and, at some stage, everyone talks about wanting to start their own thing & venture off from their current jobs? Making money on your own and being your own boss looks like the perfect scenario, ha?
Starting a business isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. You’ve got a lot of hard work and learning in your way. One of the first things you should know is the different business models, and how to structure your business. Shall it follow B2B or B2C model, for instance?
B2B, stands for business-to-business, while B2C stands for business-to-consumer.
Here are some other key differences between the 2 business models:
1. Description
In B2C, there’s no need mentioning many details about the product, only general sentences to describe it. For example, selling a piece of clothing in a store doesn’t require communicating much details to the customers. A good display & a price tag, maybe. As for B2B, things are more complicated. All details and accurate description should be mentioned, as this will affect the other business’s end product, as well. For example, the clothing factory should specify the type of fabric, thickness, colors and all the technical details related to the product.
2. Marketing
Marketing also differs in both models, as the target segment is not the same. B2C models follow a marketing approach that is controlled more by emotions, like convincing Uber customers to take an “Uber comfort” for a comforting journey and a less time consuming one. However, when it comes to B2B marketing, they rely more on reason and logic because companies usually make their decisions after studying based on long-term plans, including determining costs and returns.
That is why prices are always higher in the B2B model.
3. Timing
In B2B, the business cycle takes more time because the decision-making process requires steps to study the offers of different companies and then evaluate the company’s financial situation and determine the permissible cost. Imagine you’re the owner of a company responsible for buying 50 laptops for your employees Versus a person making a decision to buy just one laptop for his personal use. Surely, the one laptop would be an easier and faster decision to make.
4. Relationship with consumers
The relationship in B2C is between a company and thousands or millions of consumers; hence the company will not be able to maintain its relationships with every single consumer for long periods of time, especially with the presence of many competitors in the market. As for the B2B model, the company builds strong relationships and long-term ones with other businesses. So, it’s very likely that relations between B2B models are permanent ones. Not a catholic marriage though!
These two models are the most important and widely spread in the world; however, there are other hybrid models such as B2B2C, where a company sells a product/service to a business, which then sells it to a customer. An example of B2B2C is Amazon as it deals with other companies that sell their products and display them on its platform for ordinary consumers.
In the end, it is important that you plan the structure of your project before you start by defining the business segment that you target, the type of product, and the availability of expertise in your team, and despite this, most businessmen advise projects at the beginning that they follow the B2C model before turning or expanding into a B2B one.
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