What is C2B? C2B Review, Features

C2B (short for Consumer to Business) is a new business model in the era of Internet economy. The core of C2B is consumer-centric, with consumers being the masters.

feature

1. Products of the same model from the same manufacturer have the same price regardless of the terminal channel through which they are purchased, that is, the price is the same for people all over the country, and the channel does not have the pricing power (consumer equality).

2. The price structure of C2B products is reasonable (reject excessive profits).

3. Channel transparency (the O2O model rejects counterfeiting).

4. Supply chain transparency (brand sharing). The new world that humans of the C2B new business civilization are about to step into includes the O2O business model.

C2B Model

1. Customization

That is, by aggregating customer needs, merchants are organized for batch production to benefit consumers. The significance of this type of C2B form for sellers is that they can lock in user groups in advance, effectively alleviate the waste of resources caused by merchants' blind production under the B2C model, reduce the company's production and inventory costs, and increase product turnover. It plays a great role in promoting resource conservation in the commercial society. Juhuasuan and group buying are also a kind of Judai customization.

2. Module customization

Customization only aggregates the needs of consumers and does not involve customization of the B-end product itself. Haier is the leader in C2B modular customization. Haier is the first home appliance company in China to introduce the concept of customization. Through Haier Mall, you can choose the volume size, temperature control method, door material, and appearance pattern. The Qingcheng mobile phone launched in 2013 is also a typical modular customization product. The parameters of the mobile phone camera, screen, memory, etc. can all be customized. This type of customization belongs to the shallow customization in the C2B business model. It provides consumers with a modular, menu-based limited customization. Considering the transformation cost of the entire supply chain, it is not realistic to provide each consumer with completely personalized customization. At present, what can be done is more inclined to let consumers adapt to the existing supply chain of the company.

3. Deep customization

Deep customization is also called participatory customization, where customers can participate in the entire customization process. Manufacturers can customize completely according to the personalized needs of customers, and each product can be regarded as an independent SKU. At present, the most mature industries for deep customization are clothing, footwear, and furniture customization. Taking customized furniture as an example, each consumer can fully customize it according to the house type, size, style, and function. For the current house types where every inch of land is valuable, this kind of fully personalized customization meets the core needs of consumers for space utilization and personalization to the greatest extent, and is therefore eroding the market share of finished furniture. The core problem of deep customization is how to solve the contradiction between large-scale production and personalized customization. The typical representative of deep customization is the customized furniture company Shangpin Home Delivery, which deeply integrates IT technology with Internet technology, and solves the above problems through its design system, online order management system, barcode application system, mixed scheduling and production process system.

4. Offer form

A typical example of this form is Priceline, which swaps the traditional positions of sellers and buyers, with users making their own bids and merchants choosing whether to accept them.

Transaction Process

1. The buyer provides the enterprise with purchase intention information, and the enterprise determines the number of buyers, product characteristics, brand, model and price, etc.

2. The enterprise convenes the buyer directly or through a third party.

3. Purchase from the enterprise. If the buyer's requirements are not met, the transaction fails.

4. Buyer inspects goods and pays

Advantages

1. It has completely changed the weak position of consumers in traditional e-commerce. C2B embodies the consumer-centric consumption concept.

· Time-saving: Consumers do not have to waste time running around to buy a product. As long as you post a demand information on the C2B website, many merchants will come to bid.

· Save effort: You no longer need to go to the store to bargain with the merchants. Just post the demand on the C2B website and report a price you can afford. All merchants who come to bid will be able to accept this price.

· Save money: C2B model websites will help consumers find many powerful merchants to compete with buyers (consumers) to bid and compare services. Buyers can choose merchants with good cost-effectiveness to trade with.

2. It expands the development space of enterprises. Under the circumstance of generally rising raw material prices, the adoption of the C2B model of e-commerce can not only reduce the costs of small and medium-sized enterprises, but also open up the virtual market to expand transaction share, carry out corporate structural transformation, and enable small and medium-sized enterprises to develop into semi-virtual enterprises. At the same time, the goods sold on the Internet increase the profits of manufacturers, reduce price wars, eliminate intermediate channels, determine production based on sales, and reduce inventory costs.

3. It created a blue ocean of e-commerce and improved the entire e-commerce system framework. After C2B, the members of the e-commerce model family were basically complete, and other forms of e-commerce are just reflections of different aspects.

Dilemma

1. Control capability of the entire industry chain

C2B is not only a huge test for the factory production process, but also requires a reform of every link in the entire process. Take the mobile phone industry as an example. Many brand mobile phone manufacturers basically do not have their own production lines and outsource all of them. Qingcheng has made flexible production possible because it controls the entire industry chain from design, channels, marketing, branding, production lines, etc.

2. Technical Difficulty of Transformation

Personalized customization has put forward higher requirements on the design and production of enterprises. When designing products, enterprises need to consider the compatibility of products and whether such personalization is conducive to production. Traditional manufacturing products are modularly mass-produced, and customization means that each product must be independently modeled, which means a subversive transformation of the entire production process. Shangpin Home Delivery uses computer technology to re-split each order from different customers. Each board has an independent ID card - a barcode. Boards of the same size will be combined for batch production. After the various components are produced, they can be re-combined according to the number and delivered to customers, just like Chinese medicine shops picking Chinese medicine.

3. Price and cycle of C2B products

At present, solving the problem of large-scale production and personalized customization is still a core problem. The complicated customization process often leads to excessively high prices on the products, which becomes the patent of a few people. From the initial communication of customer needs, tailoring to the final delivery, a piece of customized clothing requires more than ten processes, and the production efficiency is low. In terms of the production cycle, the scattered and unplanned nature of customer orders also brings new challenges to supply chain stocking and production scheduling. The difference between Shangpin Home Delivery and traditional custom furniture companies is that through technological transformation, the production cycle has been shortened from 40 days in the traditional custom furniture industry to 10 days, and zero inventory has been achieved, reducing costs.

4. The professional level of the B-side

C2B has brought about the return of consumer awareness, but for consumers, their own consumption demands are vague. Asking them to participate in the design process of the B-end, in addition to their own limited level, whether consumers have enough patience and interest to assist the B-end is still an unknown. This requires companies to have professional talents who not only have cultural accomplishment and communication skills, but also need to be proficient in production technology.

5. Confirmation of customer consumption needs

There are two difficulties here. One is how to confirm consumer demand. Only by understanding consumer demand before the enterprise makes a decision can the huge potential of this model be realized. If the demand is not confirmed, then there is not much difference from B2C. The second difficulty is how to gather a large number of orders. C2B is to aggregate scattered but large numbers of users to send production demands to enterprises. If a large number of orders cannot be gathered, the C2B model will be difficult to implement.