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What makes a transaction B2C?
A transaction is B2C when a business sells a good or service to an individual for personal use. A shop selling groceries to a shopper and a service charging an individual for access both fit the basic definition. In ecommerce, the same relationship happens online: IBM describes B2C ecommerce as transactions between businesses and individual consumers, including online stores selling to end users (IBM’s ecommerce overview).
B2C does not, by itself, say who manufactured a product. A retailer can sell another company’s clothing to a consumer and still make a B2C sale. Salesforce’s examples also span clothing, food, and health services, illustrating that B2C covers services as well as physical goods (Salesforce’s B2C ecommerce guide).
B2C and DTC: what is the difference?
Direct-to-consumer (DTC, also called D2C) is a narrower kind of B2C: the brand or maker sells directly to the end customer, rather than relying on a retailer or other middleman for that sale. Shopify’s Help Center defines it this way: “D2C business sells products or services directly to customers without having to rely on middlemen” (Shopify Help Center terminology).
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For example, a clothing brand selling a shirt through its own website is making a DTC sale. A department store selling that same brand’s shirt to a shopper is making a B2C sale, but the store is not the maker selling DTC. The same business may also sell to retailers; the label depends on the buyer and route for the particular transaction, not on a permanent identity assigned to the company.
Examples of B2C businesses and sales channels
These examples show how the buyer relationship, seller, channel, and revenue source can differ. They are illustrations of business models, not a ranking of which is most profitable or effective.
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| Example | What the consumer relationship shows |
|---|---|
| Grocery store | A business sells food in person to an individual shopper. |
| Amazon or Zappos | An online retailer sells goods to consumers, including products made by other brands. Shopify identifies online department stores such as these as B2C direct sellers (Shopify’s B2C examples). |
| Allbirds or Gymshark | Shopify cites these brands as examples of sellers using their own channels to reach consumers—a DTC-style route within B2C (Shopify’s B2C examples). |
| A fountain-pen maker’s online store | The manufacturer sells its own product directly to a consumer, without a retailer acting as the seller in that transaction. Shopify Help Center uses this as a D2C example (Shopify Help Center terminology). |
| Streaming subscription | An individual pays for access to a service. Hulu, for example, charges individuals subscription fees while also selling advertising space to businesses, so a company can have both B2C and B2B revenue (Shopify’s B2C examples). |
| Advertising-supported platform or community | Businesses may pay platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, or Reddit to reach consumer audiences. The advertising sale is B2B (platform to business); a business’s sale to a consumer after reaching that audience can be B2C. |
| Streaming creator subscriptions | Shopify describes Twitch affiliate streamers as able to charge subscription fees. This illustrates a consumer-paid subscription, but it does not mean every transaction involving Twitch is B2C (Shopify’s B2C examples). |
How to classify a business example accurately
When a company seems to fit several labels, separate the questions rather than treating B2C as a description of its entire business model:
- Who is the seller? It might be a retailer, manufacturer, service provider, marketplace, or content platform.
- Who made the product? The seller may be the brand, another company, or no physical producer may be involved because the offering is a service or content.
- How does it reach the consumer? The route could be a physical shop, a brand website or app, an online marketplace, a social platform, or a subscription service.
- How does it earn revenue? It may charge for goods or services, subscriptions, advertising, or a combination.
A platform can serve consumers while earning money from business customers. Likewise, a brand can sell directly to consumers and also supply retailers. The buyer in a specific transaction determines whether that sale is B2C or B2B; the maker and route determine whether it is also DTC.
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Shopify lists a potentially faster sales cycle, a larger potential audience, room to charge less, and lower operating or overhead costs among possible reasons businesses pursue B2C. These are possibilities, not guaranteed results for every company. A direct channel can give a brand more control over pricing, the customer experience, and customer data, but it also means the business must manage the customer relationship and the relevant sales operations.
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