Customer to Customer e-Commerce

[amytheyu]

The shopping experience has always been a heavily tactile and sensory experience; however, with the rapid expansion of the internet enveloping more and more aspects of daily life, this is no longer the case.  While the transition from the traditional brick and mortar store to intangible online shops is often highlighted as a sign of technology's impact on daily life, there has been perhaps an even more dramatic shift in the area of C2C commerce, commonly known as "direct sales".



Early Days of C2C e-Commerce

Without the property access and structure of a business, individuals have had to make use of what little resources were available to make sales of personal property.  Common modern methods were casual direct sales, such as garage sales, or with the help of a business intermediary, such as consignment stores.  These methods of sales were mostly reliant on the buyers taking the initiative to seek out and physically travel to the sale location.




Photo by Amy Yu

For a less personal touch, print media has been heavily utilized to promote direct sales of goods to a broader audience.  In most cases, such as newspaper classifieds and bulletin board notices, the seller would provide information for the item in question along with a method of contact and the onus would be placed on the buyer to make inquiries and initiate the sale process.

Early Days of C2C e-Commerce

C2C sales in the early days of the internet very much took to a digital adaptation of the traditional print media methods, the most well known of which being Craig's List and eBay.

Craig's List

• Basic layout.
• Relatively minor changes to the user experience.
• Focus on local buying.
• Digital analog of paper classifieds.

Craig's List. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from www.craigslist.ca.




Craig's List. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from www.craigslist.ca.

eBay and Online Auction Sites

• Revolutionized global selling.
• Heavy emphasis on SEO.
• Popularized many features that are quintessential to the modern internet experience such as user generated feedback and online payment methods.

eBay. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from www.ebay.com.

The Selling Process

The modern online selling process has become a labyrinth of sites and options.  The complexity of direct selling have increased to the level where sales and marketing tactics sometime rival the business and corporate equivalents.  The relative ease with which any individual can create an image of a business without having the legal or administrative structure of a registered business provides access to a broad array of potential customers.

Sales Platform:

• eBay.
• Kijiji, Craig's List.
• Facebook, social media.
• Niche/specialty sites and apps (ie community marketplaces using Circlly).

Tokidoki BuySellTrade [Facebook]. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from www.facebook.com/groups/TokidokiBST/

Dedicated Online Store:

• Online marketplaces (ie Etsy, Storenvy).
• Hosts which offer prefabricated template sites (ie Shopify, Tictail).
• Fully customized sites.
• Paypal shopping cart.

Divinity Doll [Etsy]. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from https://www.etsy.com/shop/divinitydoll.




Divinity Doll [Tictail]. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from http://divinitydoll.tictail.com.

Promotion:

• Social media.
• Print media ads.
• SEO including nomenclature for direct sales (ie DS, DT, WTB).

Payment:

• Paypal.
• e-Transfer.
• Square and other credit card processing apps.

Paypal. Retrieved November 23, 2016 from https://www.paypal.com/invoice/manage.

Shipping:

• Canada Post online postage calculator.
• EST online/desktop.
• Sale sites integrated with tracking updates.

Canada Post EST Desktop 2.0. Retrieved November 23, 2016.

These are just a brief overview of some of the most popular and well known options, but the opportunities for C2C e-commerce are numerous and wide spread with new options becoming available daily.

With the rapid advancements in technology and numerous new app releases every day, the changes in e-commerce has reached a pace never seen before.  It is impossible to forecast what new development will change the standards by which e-commerce operates.  As much as the corporation must work hard to keep up with technology to remain relevant and profitable, the individual must do similarly or many opportunities will be lost.