C2B business models like most of C2C models like Ebay are based on 3 players: a consumer acting as seller, a business acting as buyer and an intermediary dealing with the connection between sellers and buyers.
Consumer
A consumer in the C2B business model can be any individual who has something to offer either a service or a good. The individual is paid for the work provided to the companies. Depending on the model, the "consumer" can be:
- A webmaster/ blogger offering advertising service (through Google Adsense program for example or amazon.com affiliation program)
- A photographer or a designer offering stock images to companies by selling his artwork through Fotolia or istockphoto for example
- Any individual answering a poll through a survey site
- Any individual with connections offering job hiring service by referring someone through referral hiring sites like jobster.com or h3.com
Business
Business in the C2B business model represents any companies buying goods or services to individual trough intermediaries. Here are some examples of potential companies which can be such clients:
- Any company which wants to fill a job (through referral hiring sites)
- Any company needing to advertise online (through Google Adwords program for example)
- Any advertising agency which needs to buy a stock photo (through microstock sites)
Intermediary
The Intermediary is the crucial element since it creates the connection between business which needs a service or a good and a mass of individuals. Intermediary is usually a portal both for buyers (businesses) and seller (individuals).
The intermediary plays two roles:
- It promotes goods and services offered by individuals by proposing a distribution channel. It offers what individuals can't do themselves : large promotion, logistic and financial support, technical expertise
- It offers buyers a contact to a mass of individuals and takes care of money transactions and legal aspects
We can notice that some intermediaries prefer creating two different accesses one for buyers and one for sellers (Google Adwords for advertiser - Google Adsense for web publisher) whereas other companies like Fotolia have only one access because buyers and sellers can be the same.
We can differentiate two kinds of intermediaries:
- Extern intermediary : they act as a extern agent within the relation between companies and individual (ex : referral hiring site)
- Intern intermediary: they play the role both of business and intermediary. For example, it is the case of amazon.com through its affiliation program. Amazon pays individual to promote its own products.
Few types of intermediaries
| Intermediary | Examples | What do they sell? |
| Advertising Site | Google Adwords/Adsense Tradedoubler Commission Junction | Advertising services through search engines and websites |
| Microstock Site | Fotolia Shutterstock Istockphoto | Stock Photos, Vectors, Flash animations |
| Refferal Hiring Site | H3 Josbster Jobmeeters | Job Hiring Service |
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