BtoB or Business to Business — definition

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What is Business to Business — BtoB?

BtoB is also writ­ten B2B and stands for “Busi­ness to Busi­ness”. B2B refers to all com­mer­cial activ­i­ties between two com­pa­nies.

In French, this could be trans­lat­ed as “com­merce inter­en­tre­pris­es”. BtoB is opposed to BtoC or “Busi­ness to Con­sumer”. B2C refers to all com­mer­cial rela­tions between a com­pa­ny and the gen­er­al pub­lic, i.e. the final consumers. 

An exam­ple of a BtoB illus­tra­tion could be a secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny that sells its guard­ing ser­vices to an indus­tri­al com­pa­ny. Or a sawmill that sells its wood to a car­pen­try com­pa­ny… etc. We are talk­ing about com­pa­nies that sell their offer to anoth­er company. 

In a more gen­er­al way, the BtoB des­ig­nates all the means used to put in rela­tion com­pa­nies or enter­pris­es between them. 

BtoB and e‑commerce

Accord­ing to the Frost & Sul­li­van study, glob­al BtoB e‑commerce sales will reach more than $6.6 tril­lion in 2020, sur­pass­ing BtoC sales, which are esti­mat­ed at $3.2 tril­lion over the same period. 

If the cur­rent “online” share of BtoC is in the 12–15% range, the online share of BtoB is around 2–3%… but con­stant­ly increasing. 

It is even expect­ed that BtoB trade will become more like BtoC trade in the future. This is why man­u­fac­tur­ers must pre­pare for these evo­lu­tions towards online sales and these upheavals to remain competitive. 

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