Business-to-business
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Business-to-business (B2B) is a term commonly used to describe commerce transactions between businesses, as opposed to those between businesses and other groups, such as business and individual consumers (B2C) or business and government (B2G).
B2B is also commonly used as an adjective to describe any activity, be it B2B marketing, sales, or e-commerce, that occurs between businesses and other businesses rather than between businesses and consumers. Similar to B2B, B2G is often meant to refer to B2G Marketing.
The volume of B2B transactions is much higher than the volume of B2C transactions. The primary reason for this is that in a typical supply chain there will be many B2B transactions involving sub component or raw materials but only one B2C transaction, because the sale of the finished product to the end customer is only a single transaction.
An example of a B2B transaction is an automobile manufacturer buying tires for its vehicles. The additional purchases of glass for the windows, paint, and steel would all be additional B2B transactions. The final transaction, a finished vehicle being sold to the consumer, would be considered a (B2C) transaction.
Etymology
The term "business-to-business" was originally coined to describe the electronic communication relations between businesses or enterprises in order to distinguish it from the communications between businesses and consumers (B2C). It eventually came to be used in marketing as well, initially describing only industrial or capital goods marketing. However, today it is widely used to describe all products and services used by enterprises.