5 Myths about B2B2C ecommerce (BUSTED)

B2B2C ecommerce is a lucrative but tricky business model to maneuver! 

Thanks to many myths circulating in the business-to-business-to-consumer ecommerce ecosystem, brands are hesitant to leverage the business model despite knowing it can be their ticket to success.

But here we are, debunking all the myths and going down straight on the facts on how to establish a conversion-oriented B2B2C marketplace. 

But before we go any further, let us first go around the business model and understand its basics.

How can we define B2B2C?

Businesses usually fall into one of the three buckets:

• B2C, who sell to the consumers
• B2B, who sell to other businesses
• B2B + B2C, who sell to consumers and businesses parallelly 

But how and where does the B2B2C business model adjust?

In simple terms, any business that sells to a business (B2B) that sells to a consumer (B2C) is a B2B2C ecommerce business. The first business is a supplier, offering its products/services to the second business, which then combined with its own offerings, sells it to the end customers. 

For example:

• Zomato is a B2B2C service aggregator that connects restaurants and cloud kitchens to the end customers
• Ola is a giant B2B2C marketplace that partners with various cab, auto, and bike owners and drivers who offer their services.
• Urban Company is the largest Indian B2B2C online platform that connects customers with local professionals for a range of services like beauty/wellness, home repair, yoga training, cleaning, pest control, etc. 

What makes the B2B2C ecommerce business model widely accepted?

Brands are rushing towards the B2B2C business model for a lot of reasons. Here is a quick glimpse of the business model gaining popularity:

• 25.49% of enterprise brands pivoted successfully to a B2B2C model
• 39.22% of manufacturers are currently making efforts to adopt the B2B2C model
• 42.3% of brands’ second main sales channel was B2B2C

Source: Copperberg

There is no doubt a lot of benefits to adopting the B2B2C business model for all parties involved. Many B2B brands are now shifting their sales channels and partnering with retailers to leverage retailer's distribution channels. A B2B2C ecommerce platform allows brands to reach a broader customer base and boost their conversions. 

Here are a few reasons that make the business-to-business-to-consumer model a success for enterprise brands:  

• It enables brands to engage directly with the end customers 
• Opens up new markets as brands can cater to a wider customer base 
• Brands can scale to newer segments and industry verticals 
• Helps build stronger brand recognition and consumer trust 
• Gives brands access to rich customer data about their preferences and behavior 
• Makes growing business easier with access to tech solutions Helps enterprise brand multiply and diversify their revenue streams
• B2B2C ecommerce provides a launchpad to test various product-market mixes 

With the blurring lines between the B2B and B2C business models, the B2B2C e commerce offers a new way to use the synergies between both models and attain growth like never before. From new start-ups to traditional companies, all are considering pivoting to the B2B2C business model. The B2B2C model enables brands to better understand and fulfill customer expectations and in turn, get valuable insights for strategic growth. 

Debunking 5 myths about B2B2C ecommerce 

With the B2B2C marketplace being the talk of the ecommerce town, it has surely attracted a few myths. As the business model continues to evolve with time, people tend to believe things that come their way. But don't worry, we are here to guide you through and bust the myths surrounding the versatile ecommerce business model. 

Let’s get started: 

Myth 1: Complex to implement

A majority of people believe that implementing the B2B2C ecommerce model is complex. Since it combines the two models, B2B and B2C, it would be tough to attend to the combined needs. 

Reality

Diversifying to the B2C sector and taking up the B2B2C approach requires a B2B2C ecommerce solution that is scalable and seamlessly helps with enterprise-level business operations. The ease of managing and running the business depends largely on the solution you choose for your enterprise business. 

StoreHippo ecommerce platform is designed on the future-ready MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) architecture that helps the brands to build tailor-made ecommerce solutions for diverse business needs. You can also tweak the platform inside out without having to disrupt the entire ecosystem. StoreHippo comes with 300+ in-built features that help take care of diverse business models. With the built-in support for B2B and B2C ecommerce solutions, StoreHippo helps to seamlessly run and grow your B2B2C marketplace. StoreHippo also comes with a comprehensive multi vendor solution that helps businesses manage B2C sellers who eventually cater to end buyers. 

Myth 2: B2B2C is just B2B and B2C put together

By creating different sales channels for B2B and B2C buyers you can leverage the benefits of B2B2C ecommerce.

Reality

If you are one among those who think having your B2B and B2C sales channels is equal to having a B2B2C business model, you are certainly mistaken. While B2B2C has elements of both B2B and B2C, the core difference here is that the parent brand as well as the other businesses collaborating with it are eventually serving the same target customer.

This unique aspect of the B2B2C business model means that the core focus is on the B2C audience segment. The B2B part of B2B2C ecommerce is mainly focused on facilitating other businesses in growing their business and using collaboration to offer value-added services to the end buyer so that they remain loyal to the parent brand/platform.

For example, Zomato is a B2B2C service aggregator that partners with multiple restaurants, who then offer their products to the end customers. Here the parent company Zomato is interacting with the customer but through intermediaries (restaurants). 

StoreHippo ecommerce platform is built on a headless architecture that gives brands the creative freedom to build custom and personalized buyer journeys for both B2B and B2C aspects of the business. StoreHippo’s gamut of features and built-in support for both B2B and B2C business models help businesses run the B2B2C setup seamlessly.

Myth 3: B2B2C is limited to certain industries

For those believing that B2B2C ecommerce platform is the best fit for certain industries only, it is time to bust the myth.

Reality

The B2B2C business model is best fitted for any and every industry where the business manufactures or provides products/services through a large distributor network. The business model is all about blending the two frameworks (B2B and B2C) together and forming a new business entity that collaborates with other businesses to sell to the end customers.

Here are 5 such industries that can chart an upward growth trajectory with the B2B2C ecommerce route:

• Beauty and cosmetics brands can connect with retailers and create a B2B portal for retailers while having a B2C online store for the customers
• Fashion brands can create the retailers brand shop on the B2B2C platform that offers the retailers an online presence to attract loyal customer base
• Food and beverage business can also digitize their wholesale channel and create various B2C location-based sub-stores 
• Pharmaceutical and healthcare businesses can build B2B online stores to sell in bulk to the hospital chains and also create a B2C channel to widen their buyer base
• Businesses dealing with baby care products can also build a B2B2C ecommerce platform to diversify their sales channels

Many more such industries along with the above-mentioned enterprise businesses can grow their ecommerce presence with the opportunities offered by the business-to-business-to-consumer ecommerce set-up. 

StoreHippo comes with comprehensive solutions and supports any type of hybrid business model. It comes with 300+ built-in enterprise-grade features including comprehensive product management, order management, invoicing, tax engine and more to help businesses offer a seamless buying experience to both their B2B customers and B2C customers.

Myth 4: B2B2C does not require customer-centric strategies 

B2BC does not require you to focus on customer-centric strategies, you just need to take care of your partnering B2B businesses. 

Reality

When you enter the B2B2C ecommerce domain both your partner businesses and the end buyers are your clients. While you need to facilitate your seller partners to get the most out of your set up, the end customer expectation remains  pivotal to the growth of your brand as well as your partners.

It is crucial to strategize your marketing, branding and customer experiences across channels so that your B2B2C brand remains competitive and creates a niche for your business. While facilitating your B2B partners with tech, delivery and branding solutions you also need to offer an engaging UI/UX, seamless navigation, personalized discounts and frictionless checkouts to your buyers.

Long term B2B2C marketplace success is possible only when your customers are happy and keep coming for more to your brand and its intermediary businesses.  

It will however need a lot of planning and implementation to create an engaging design, a seamless buyer journey and an ecommerce strategy that aligns well with both the audience groups.

StoreHippo offers a host of in-built marketing tools to help you strategize and execute your marketing plans with a focus on your customers. It offers a separate vendor login for each of the business partners on the B2B2C ecommerce platform. The personal dashboard helps the sellers/business partners to work towards offering the best possible shopping experience to their customers and analyze their orders, reports etc in a quick glance. 

With the powerful built-in discount engine, you can run multi-level discounts and coupons as part of an enhanced customer-centric marketing strategy on your B2B2C marketplace. With  headless architecture, you can craft personalized buyer/seller journeys for your customers as well as partner businesses. You can also offer personalized messages to your customers and send real-time notifications to recover abandoned carts. StoreHippo is designed for a wide range of B2B + B2C ecommerce brands with comprehensive and easy-to-use marketing solutions.

Myth 5: Tough to create unique ecommerce solutions 

It is usually believed that it is tough to create unique ecommerce solutions as both sets of buyers have different needs and expectations from the parent brand.

Reality

However, in reality, creating a unique B2B2C ecommerce solution is all about doing a mix-and-match experiment. It’s true that your buyers and sellers will have different journeys hence the service providers, CRM, ERP, accounting, and other solutions for both these segments will also be different. Both your B2B and B2C parts of the business will have their own ecommerce environments and building tailored solutions for both segments is essential for a flourishing business.

StoreHippo enables you to create a unique ecommerce environment using your preferred service and software providers. StoreHippo is built on the decoupled headless architecture and offers a flexible ecommerce platform that can be customized at the front end as well as the backend. With the API-based architecture, you can easily integrate with your favorite software and service providers to create your unique ecommerce ecosystem. You can seamlessly add chatbots, logistics solutions, ERP, CRM, multi channel customer support, payment methods, etc. of your choice to create a smooth shopping experience for your customers. 

How does StoreHippo B2B2C ecommerce solution help build a B2B2C marketplace

StoreHippo is a feature-rich ecommerce platform that offers comprehensive solutions to build a conversion-oriented B2B2C marketplace. It is a decoupled platform that can easily be tweaked according to the business needs.

Here are a few reasons why StoreHippo is the best solution to power your business-to-business-to-consumer marketplace: 

• Headless architecture gives creative freedom to build custom and personalized buyer journeys for both B2B and B2C buyers
• Built-in support to easily create disruptive solutions for various business models like the B2B, B2C, D2C, B2B2C etc
• Comprehensive multi vendor solutions to manage multiple sellers, distributors and suppliers
• Multi store ecommerce solutions to help you set up b2B and b2C stores and manage them seamlessly
• Mobile-first principle to build B2B and B2C mobile apps directly from the admin dashboard 
• SEO-friendly platform to help businesses rank higher on SERPs and other powerful in-built marketing tools
• 300+ enterprise-grade features to seamlessly run and grow your B2B2C ecommerce platform
• PCI-DSS compliant platform that offers free SSL certificates and ensures multi-level security 
• 300+ API endpoints to ensure seamless integrations with the best marketing, CRM, accounting, analytics and other software and third-party providers
• 60+ pre-integrated payment gateways and other digital payment options like digital wallets, UPI etc.
• 30+ pre-integrated shipping channels and built-in delivery boy management solution to handle a fleet of delivery boys of the B2B2C business

StoreHippo offers a well-rounded B2B2C ecommerce solution that helps brands bypass the technical and operational difficulties and create a seamless buying experience for the customers. 

Conclusion

The ecommerce industry has blended the  B2B and B2C worlds so strongly that it has given birth to a new, wholesome, and versatile model: the B2B2C ecommerce model. 

However, there are many myths and misconceptions around the model that make it tough for businesses to apprehend and adopt. By understanding the nuances of the business model and aligning the strengths of both businesses, you can diversify your revenue streams and craft your unique solution with StoreHippo. The B2B2C ecommerce solutions from StoreHippo come with enterprise-grade features that help brands build a unique platform for their customers and offer rich shopping experiences.    

So are you ready to build your B2B2C platform with StoreHippo? Explore the B2B2C solutions by starting your 14-day free trial now.