E-commerce business is just 3 decades old still there are lots of room for growth. Every business on this planet looking to change its business into an e-commerce model. If it’s a product or service company both are exploring to enhance their businesses by implementing an e-commerce model.
The E-commerce business model is one of the recession-proof models to adapt across all industries to sustain in tough times.
The Sooner you adapt longer your competitive edges to your business.
*Information given in this article is limited not the fullest expert advice related to e-commerce.
What you can expect if you continue reading. You will get a better understanding of the below!
1. What is an e-commerce business?
2. Why e-commerce is recession-proof
3. Different e-commerce types
4. How much does it cost to start an e-commerce business in India?
5. Corona changed everything
6. E-commerce business examples
7. Different platforms to use to build your e-commerce business
What is e-commerce?
Electronic commerce is having your products or services displayed virtually by use of computers and the internet.
Internet was used for sending commercial bills, invoices through an electronic medium in the earlier days. Now you can take any product or service to the e-commerce business.
If anyone having a mobile phone, desktop, or laptop with an internet connection can view your product from your virtual store and select listed products or services to avail themselves. Simple is it?
YES! pretty simple if you use this technology with mindfulness. Any business can have its own e-commerce store to run its business anywhere in the world. For running a virtual store you should have a decent speed of internet, computer space, and name for your e-store
Why ecommerce is recession proof?
The Corona pandemic changed everything in the business world. People and governments are restricting social gatherings due to contagious viruses. Everyone on this planet is looking into the internet stores for products before buying or visiting the physical stores.
In India, Flipkart is one of the unicorns in the e-commerce business. Amazon is dominating across the globe by its wide range of products and sellers. Mr.Jeff Bezos is a top richest person who founded Amazon and racking billions every year after Mr. Elon Musk founder of Tesla, SpaceX
Amazon and Flipkart are earning billions of dollars every year. You can buy anything and everything in the e-commerce store. In the pandemic lots of traditional business is closed and bankrupt, e-commerce businesses are growing stronger in this pandemic too.
If you are a business owner and if you own an e-commerce business then you might be financially safe in this pandemic.
One good example of a traditional business converted into an e-commerce store is tamizhagampress which survived in the pandemic with its adaptation to modern technology with an online presence and by their servicing offerings.
There are different types of e-commerce business models. Let’s see our types and business models.
Different e commerce business types
B2C –Business to Customer
B2B –Business to Business
D2C-Direct to Customer
C2C –Customer to Customer
C2B –Customer to a business
B2C-Business to Customer
In this e-commerce business model whoever owns a product or service, they can sell their product or service to their prospects who are in need. In this model business owners either need their own e-commerce pages, apps to showcase their products to needy customers. But is not possible for micro and small business owners to invest in this infrastructure. What to do?
There are already builder platforms available that’s where Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, Swiggy, Uber, OLA are coming into the pictures. If you are a seller you can register to these platforms and sell your products or services. Customers can avail themselves of those based on their requirements. These are different apps for different niches.
B2C is one of the widely used business models in e-commerce businesses. In 2020 e-commerce business generated revenue of 4.28 trillion US dollars as per statistica.com.
It is projected to grow 5.4 trillion US dollars in 2022 with more adaption.
B2B- Business to Business
The word itself is self-explanatory; this model is used to have a transaction between one business to another business. Before e-commerce technology finding a trustable seller and buyer is time-consuming. Some time felt frustrated to find quality raw materials for businesses. Tirelessly need to travel to examine the quality of the product, seller credentials and inspect their infrastructure.
Now it becomes easy to find out the sellers and good buyers in the market by using the technology. Still, confused? Here is an example
If you own a customized T-Shirt business in New York if suppose you want to buy a good quality T-shirt at a moderate cost. You just login into the B2B e-commerce business websites or platform and post your requirements; you will get a number of buyer contact details who own a T-shirt manufacturing company. You can have price negotiation over a phone call or by mail, deal done.
Indiamart, TradeIndia, Alibaba are some of the platforms where you can be good sellers of any products. By using this platform you can also do international transactions.
As per grand view research global business e-commerce market size was valued at 6.64 trillion USD in 2020. It is expected to grow by 18% CAGR From 2021 to 2028.
D2C –Direct to Customer
In this model manufacturers and producers can sell their products directly to their consumers. This model is developed to cut the cost of the intermediate. In other business models like B2C, B2B you have a platform owner like Amazon, Flipchart where you sell your products using their platforms by giving commission to them for the exchange of service. This will always increase the cost of the product in the market. By this e-commerce business model, consumers can directly voice out their feedbacks, suggestions to their brand to have better consumer experiences.
D2C e-commerce business model is evolving, in the next decade D2C will have strong revenues and it will dominate the e-commerce business world. It’s already clocking more than 100 billion USD in 2020. It is projected to grow 129 billion USD in 2021.
If you are a manufacturer or producer early adaption of the D2C model will help you in keeping your business competitive.
C2C –Customer to Customer
Customers can trade his/her products to another customer in this business modeled-bay was one of the pioneers in this business model. In this e-commerce business model consumer who wants to sell their products can display their products on the platform and the needy consumer can go forbidding, the highest bidder will do transactions after paying a commission to the e-commerce platform.
OLX is one of the best platforms for the C2C model in India. This model works out very well for used items. Some of the C2C companies for your reference.
- Amazon.com, Inc.
- Auctions.com
- Ali baba
- Craigslist, Inc.
- uBid.com
- Airing, Inc.
- EBay Inc.
C2B- Customers to Business
After inter-connected world customer to business is also one of the business models used to generate revenues and sales. In this type of business, customers are paid by the businesses to promote their product or services in their social media pages, blogs, Affiliate or referral programs, and word of mouth programs. This is a new approach getting attraction to generating passive income for the millennials in this gig economy. This also includes influencers programs.
This will become one of the imperative business models in the future to have the best waste management system for electronics recycling.
How much does it cost to start an eCommerce business in India?
To build a commerce business you need web pages to display your products with their specifications, price, and quality, and delivery timeline. As I said with “NO COST” you set your own e-commerce there are multiple ways, here I am going to explain about creating a what’s app store by business account. In WhatsApp, you go to business tools and select catalog, then upload your product or service pics, price, number of quantity, etc.
This is one of the simplest, easiest and cost-effective ways to set up your e-commerce store before investing and scaling up your business in the domain name, hosting, and marketing.
Create a video for the WhatsApp store and upload it to YouTube and attach the link
Lockdown changes behavior
After the pandemic, more businesses are adapting to the digitalization of their business model which is cost-effective and competitive enough to survive. One good example is the education industry everyone thinks that dilly routing of attending in the physical place of school only gives knowledge. But lots of industry experts with different ideas changing the education industry, in that DigitlDeepak, is one of the popular online courses with 16 weeks digital internship program which is giving enough knowledge and great learning experiences with incentivizing for completing the assignments in 30 days of the timeline. This one attractive course which more GenX and GenY’s are enrolling to skill up their knowledge
Now the online education system is a lucrative one where the learner is getting good knowledge with less investment with good learning experience through the power of the internet and modern technologies.
E commerce business examples
Amazon, Flipkart, Mitra, E-bay and all online purchased whatever happening using the internet are all examples of e-commerce businesses
Platforms to create your own e-commerce store
There are many platforms available in the e-commerce industry where you can create your own store with less investment. Those platforms offer different business models to differentiate each other.
Below listed are the platforms:
Amazon –Retailing platform
Flipchart –Retailing platform
Mesh –Small and medium business
Myntra – Fashion Industry
CARS21 – Car exchange
Policy Bazaar – Insurance
To start with using these platforms to create your own e-commerce stores and build your business with strong SEO. Once you get traffic to your web store then you can increase your revenue with offerings and create your own platform to scale up your business as a brand.
Conclusion:
It’s not too late to extend your business to e-commerce form. Soon you create your own e-commerce store faster you can adapt to the change and survive in any recession or pandemic situation. The future is the technology with e-commerce will have a better chance to grow bigger and stronger. Soon jump and adapt.
For better experience e-commerce store contact us: digitifyou@gmail.com