If you wish to start your journey in the world of eCommerce, then you might be torn between B2b or B2c. So, what’s the difference?
Whenever someone establishes a new business in the online world, it serves a purpose. The one word that you might have heard thrown around a lot lately is “niche.” What exactly is it? To make it simple for you, it’s basically a fancy way of referring to various product categories or services catalogs suitable for a certain set of audiences. In other words, you can also call it a separate industry. But, the key difference is that even though the automobile is an industry, race cars are a niche. There’s the key difference to understand.
But then there’s another differentiator between the business types, that is b2b and b2c. Well, b2b is shortened of business to business, whereas the latter is business to customer. Now, as you might have guessed already, one caters to other businesses or services, whereas the other tends to the need of a common consumer. So, how do you go about channeling the marketing for these two? How do you make a strategy that ensures that your marketing does not fade regardless of the type of business you are in? To help you understand, let us illustrate the differences.
1. Differences in Customers
The one major difference between the marketing approach of b2b and b2c business are their customers. As their names suggest, b2b businesses sell to other businesses, whereas b2c businesses are more consumer-centric. So whether you talk about services or products, the one thing that puts a wall between them is this.
Now, how does this translate into marketing? Where you’d market a range of products and large quantities to other businesses, you would focus on one commodity for a consumer-based eCommerce business. Whereas marketing the services for both customer types would also be the same- providing more quantity.
2. Differences In Quantity
Speaking of quantity, another thing that is a major differentiator between the two is quantity. Granted that it doesn’t always translate into services for a service-based business, but it does cause a variance. For instance, if you were to make a website for a customer or another business, your services would remain the same, but the scale would change.
This is one of the key things you will have to understand if you are a service-based business. For instance, creating a business website for a start-up eCommerce would be a lot less work compared to a major marketplace. So, devise your strategy based on the quantity that you provide.
3. Differences in Services
Now, there are differences in the services themselves that you provide. For instance, regardless of your business providing products or services, the one common denominator in B2B v. B2C is their customer support. You need to provide it to another business, as well as to a customer.
So, you will have to cater to customer care and support accordingly. But, to put it simply, dealing with a mishap with a single product would be a lot less difficult compared to dealing with a large quantity of, say, 10,000 or so.
4. Difference in Purchases
As implied throughout this article, quantity is one of the major differences. However, purchases are different two. For a product-based commodity, orders of 10,000 or so wouldn’t be a big deal. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the customer would purchase it in one go. So, there’s another difference to understand.
As your customers, other businesses- would be leaning towards buying parts, even if their order is more than 10 thousand. Why is this? One, because of storage problems, and the second is for security. So, differences in purchases should also be your consideration when devising a marketing tactic for it.
5. Difference in Digital Marketing
Now, let us talk about marketing itself. How would you write the first line of your website copy? Would you target the need of your customer or the benefit that your product provides? The answer is neither, as you would try to agitate your reader regarding a problem.
Therefore, the solution to that problem is your digital marketing solution for your customer. To make the most of your outing as a marketer, you will have to make sure that you understand your customer, as the first point implied, then write your copy and lead your marketing approach.
Conclusion
So, these are some of the most common differences in marketing approaches for a b2b and b2c business. You will have to tend to each of them to make sure that you devise a strategy that helps you get over the line and establishes your brand as a dependable name.
