26 E-commerce

A B2C, B2B and B2G

Selling to the public on the internet is business-to-consumer or B2C e-commerce. Business-to-
business e-commerce or B2B, with firms communicating with and ordering from their suppliers over
the internet, is e-procurement.
The internet is also changing the way that citizens deal with their governments. In some places you
can already communicate with government departments, apply for government contracts and pay
taxes using the internet. Businesses doing this are using the internet for business-to-government or
B2G purposes.

B Web 2.0
The first phase of selling over the internet ended with the dot-com bust of 2001, when many
internet sellers went out of business.
We are now in a more stable phase of internet selling, dominated by a few big websites such as
Amazon and eBay. This second phase is sometimes referred to as Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 is also used to refer to the increasing importance of social-networking sites such as
Facebook, video-sharing sites such as YouTube, blogs – online diaries – and collaborative sites
where people work together on particular projects. The best known is Wikipedia, the online
encyclopaedia entirely written by users.

C E-commerce companies
Amazon was founded in 1994, and launched online in 1995 by Jeff Bezos. It started by selling books
but now sells everything from jewellery to electronics. It also hosts other sellers on its site – other
sellers can offer their goods – and takes a commission – percentage of money from sales – from
them on products sold through the site.
eBay was founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. It’s an auction site linking buyers and sellers, a
method of selling where buyers put in bids – increasing offers – for goods: the highest bidder –
person offering the most – wins, and eBay takes a commission on each sale.

Online is also spelled on-line. Online is

Note

ten times more frequent than on-line.

D Word combinations with ‘online’

Online selling is only one form of e-commerce. Here are some others.
banking you can check the state of your bank account.
dating you can find a partner.
gambling / gaming you can make (and lose!) money in games of chance.
With online
brokerage you can buy and sell shares, etc.
travel you can make bookings for flights, etc.
fundraising non-profit organizations (see Unit 12) can raise money.

60 Business Vocabulary in Use Intermediate

 Exercises
26.1 Look at A opposite and say whether each of these uses of the internet is B2B, B2C or B2G.
1 Private individuals can rent a car without phoning the car rental company.
2 The city is looking for construction companies to build a new airport. There are hundreds of pages
of specifications you can obtain from the city authorities.
3 Car companies are getting together to buy components from suppliers in greater quantities,
reducing prices.
4 Businesses can get information about taxes from a government website.
5 Members of the public can buy legal advice from law firms.
26.2 Look at B and C opposite. Read the article and answer the questions.

$
$ SOCIAL SHOPPING $

$
Stephanie Rahlfs is a keen follower of the latest fashion trends.
She reads a dozen fashion magazines. She writes a blog called
Adventures in the Stiletto Jungle, an online source for fashion
product reviews. Rahlfs, a 30-year-old former lawyer in Santa
Clara, also is one of the style-setters helping to power the next
generation of online shopping sites. On ThisNext, Rahlfs
recommends must-have clothes and accessories, from a Marc
Jacobs bracelet to a Juicy Couture sweater. Her suggestions feed
into an engine that lets other shoppers – not just her friends and
readers of her blog – find products online.
Called social-shopping sites, ThisNext, Kaboodle, Stylehive,
StyleFeeder and others are incorporating the community features of
Web 2.0 into online shopping. They represent the latest tool for
online shoppers this holiday season, using the power and expertise
of friends and others online to help locate the perfect gift.
$
“I’m a really good shopper in fashion and beauty, but I
don’t know anything about shopping for gadgets or kids,”
said Rahlfs. “The great thing is I can share my expertise
and I can pull from the expertise of others and find out
what other people would buy.”
Online Christmas holiday shopping is expected to
grow this year, despite fears that the economic crisis
could discourage people from spending too much money.
A report by the Forrester research firm predicts that
online shoppers will spend about $33 billion this season,
21 per cent more than last year.
“The online shopping population is more affluent
and less price-sensitive,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, an
analyst with Forrester. “They’re busy and time-starved
and looking for solutions on the Web.”

1 What is Stephanie Rahlfs’s blog about?

2 Can you buy products on her blog?
3 Are social-shopping websites like ordinary e-commerce sites?
4 What is the advantage of social-shopping websites for Stephanie Rahlfs?
5 Why is it surprising if online Christmas shopping grows by 21 per cent this year?
6 According to Sucharita Mulpuru, are online shoppers a) richer than average, and b) less worried
about paying higher prices than most other people?
26.3 Complete each sentence with an expression from D opposite.
1 Thirty-five per cent of US adults don’t take all of the vacation days they receive, according to a
survey done by the online service Expedia.
2 With debit cards and online , how much cheque-writing do you still do?
3 Médecins sans Frontières has used online to successfully raise money and show
the world the projects it is working on.
4 Investors are advised to consider costs beyond advertised rates in selecting an online
.
5 We didn’t have a problem before the casino opened, but in the past few years more and more of
my clients have become addicted to online .

Over to you
What are the potential problems of shopping online?

Business Vocabulary in Use Intermediate 61