INTRODUCTION
Commerce can be conducted face-to-face or electronically. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) refers to buyers and sellers transacting online. As Figure 1 illustrates, businesses and individual consumers participate in various forms of this commerce, for example, business-to-business (B2B); business-to-consumer (B2C); and consumer-to-consumer (C2C). B2B e-commerce is the conducting of online transactions between businesses. It is the largest form of e-commerce being practiced today. B2C e-commerce is the conducting of online transactions between a business and a consumer. It is the largest form of e-commerce being researched and the second largest form of e-commerce being practiced. C2C e-commerce is the conducting of online transactions between consumers. It has not been researched as much as B2B or B2C e-commerce, but it is steadily catching up to B2C e-commerce, in practice. For example, online auction use is expected to reach $54 billion in 2007, which is a growth rate of 33% compounded annually since 2002 (Johnson, 2002). Even though more transactions are occurring, research in C2C e-commerce has not kept up in this growing field. Perhaps the reason for this lack of synchronization is that researchers are unaware of the many venues in which C2C e-commerce can and is being conducted.
The most cited and researched example of C2C e-com-merce is through online auctions such as eBay. However, there are many other venues for conducting C2C e-commerce that should be explored that may not necessarily be apparent. As demonstrated by existing research in C2C e-commerce, researchers have focused their studies on venues in which C2C e-commerce is the specified purpose of a site. In addition to these venues, C2C e-commerce can be facilitated in places such as online communities, Web-based discussion forums, consumer blogs, and chat rooms. Each of these venues needs to be explored before a complete representation of C2C e-commerce can be made. Differences in how a consumer views each of the C2C e-commerce venues may be expected to alter the factors affecting his/her determination to participate in C2C e-commerce in the various venues.
To help researchers in structuring the potential venues and classifying factors affecting participation, this article presents a taxonomy of the C2C e-commerce venues and a description of the types of venues found in the categories. The next section provides a background discussion of each venue discussed in the taxonomy. Following that will be the presentation of the taxonomy. Future trends and conclusions are provided at the end of the article.
BACKGROUND
C2C e-commerce has been examined in terms of trust, reputation systems, and value in communities. However, the venues for conducting C2C e-commerce have not been explored, nor have the multitude of venues available to conduct C2C e-commerce been recognized. This section will present potential C2C e-commerce venues and the relevant research to date for each venue.
Online auctions have been heavily researched in the literature. An online auction is designed to allow consumers to buy and sell from one another in a structured environment.
Figure 1. Commerce channels
In this venue, payment and product exchange mechanisms are established. One area of concern in online auctions is the reputation system. Many researchers have examined the impact of a seller’s reputation (given that he/she may be anonymous) on the willingness of buyers to bid on and purchase items in an online auction (Lin, Li, Janamanchi, & Huang, 2006; Melnik & Alm, 2002). Online auctions have also been researched in many other ways, such as price setting (Bapna, Goes, & Gupta, 2001), bidding strategies (Ward & Clark, 2002), and trust (Klein & O’Keefe, 1999).
Third party listing services allow consumers to post items for sale as one would traditionally post in the classifieds. Third party listing services are also well structured and appear to be an established way to conduct C2C e-commerce; however, they have not been explored in the literature with regard to selling and purchasing. Currently, only the recognition of a third party in the buying/selling process has been studied as to its impact on consumer trust (Schneiderman, 2000).
Online communities offer consumers a venue to post comments regarding a topic of interest to the community. The feeling of being part of a “community” opens the online community up to more than just topical discussions. They offer the opportunity to post items for sale based on the community interest. The “community” feeling may make the member feel more comfortable with buying a product from another community member. Online communities have been greatly researched. Areas examined the most regarding online communities are: value (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996), design (Andrews, 2002; Lutters & Ackerman, 2003), success (Cothrel, 2000), and use in health care (Leimeister, Ebner, & Krcmar, 2005). However, research has not been conducted regarding the commerce that exists in online communities.
Web-based discussion forums are an online venue that allows individuals to post information related to a particular topic. Discussion forums are similar to online communities; however, individuals can be a part of an online forum without being a member of the online community. Web-based discussion forums have been researched in relation to rules of communication (Fayard, DeSanctis, & Roach, 2004), influence on consumer purchase decisions (Dellarocas, 2006), and learning (DeSanctis, Fayard, Roach, & Jiang, 2003).
Consumer blogs are online journal-like Web sites created by users to display their personal thoughts and ideas, much like a diary, and individuals that read the blog can leave messages which make this venue highly interactive. Therefore, blogs can be used for more than displaying journal entries; they can be utilized to conduct transactions. Research related to consumer blogging has currently been completed in relation to why people blog (Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht, & Swartz, 2004) and protecting bloggers (Robben, 2006), but blogging has yet to be studied in relation to C2C e-commerce.
Chat rooms offer a locale for individuals to meet and “chat” as often as they would like in real time. Chat rooms also offer the opportunity for consumers to meet and establish how a sale will take place; however, this aspect has yet to be explored in the literature. Chat rooms have been researched regarding information exchange (Shoham, 2004) and promotional chat where word-of-mouth and advertising is used (Mayzlin, 2006).
While research concerning commerce in these venues is lacking, anecdotal evidence suggests that all of these venues can be utilized to conduct C2C e-commerce. In order for researchers to fully study the venues, a taxonomy must first be established for guidance. The next section develops a taxonomy for C2C e-commerce venues.
C2C E-COMMERCE VENUES TAXONOMY
Taxonomies can help to better detail a particular phenomenon. When an area of research begins to blossom, it can be difficult to understand how research areas fit together. A taxonomy can help to structure current research, to identify holes in the existing literature for future research, and to build a roadmap for a given area of research. No such taxonomy exists for any aspect of C2C e-commerce. Without this valuable tool, researchers may find it difficult to see the connections among the current C2C e-commerce research and to develop future C2C e-commerce projects. This article develops a taxonomy of the venues in which C2C e-commerce can take place. Defining the characteristics of these various venues will help researchers to classify aspects of their C2C e-commerce research and begin to provide prescriptions to consumers participating in these various venues.
C2C e-commerce venues can broadly be broken into two main categories: Structured/Intended and Unstructured/Unintended (see Figure 2). Each of these two main categories can contain numerous venues where C2C e-commerce can be conducted. Below is a description of each of these categories.
Structured/Intended
The structured/intended category is made up of C2C e-com-merce which is performed in a venue set up specifically for C2C e-commerce. For example, online auctions (e.g., eBay) and third party listing services (e.g., Half.com) are intended to facilitate C2C e-commerce. These venues may have other features available on the sites, but the main purpose for the site itself is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. In order to participate on these sites consumers are required to adhere to various standards set forth by the third party hosting the site. The third party enforces its right to restrict consumers from participating if they do not adhere to the standards. These venues may or may not require payment from the seller in order to list on their site. The company governing the site provides consumers with information regarding what is and is not allowed to be exchanged on the site. The third party continually monitors the site to ensure that proper activities are being conducted. For example, the third party ensures that the buyer and seller of a transaction complete the given transaction under the terms agreed upon by the two parties. In many cases, the third party provides a guarantee or insurance to the buyer/seller.
Figure 2. C2C electronic commerce venues taxonomy
These venues are very structured with formalized methods for the exchange of goods and services to and from consumers. Consumers are able to search the sites for specific products they wish to purchase or simply browse merchandise by category. They are then able to see the prices (or, in cases of auctions, the bids) of each item, description, method of payment accepted, and in most cases, pictures of the product. After a transaction takes place, consumers are able to rate one another regarding the transaction. The buyer’s/seller’s ratings are grouped together to provide a consumer with information regarding the number of positive and negative ratings received. This provides additional structured information for consumers to review and compare to other buyers/sellers.
Many factors can affect a consumer’s willingness to participate in C2C e-commerce. For example, a consumer may feel that making purchases from consumers rather than businesses puts them at more risk of receiving defective products. C2C e-commerce conducted in the structured/intended venues may help to alleviate some of this feeling of risk by providing a third party to govern the transactions. While the consumer is still ultimately purchasing from another consumer, the structured and formal process of the venues in this category may provide more of a feeling of purchasing through a business entity.
Unstructured/Unintended
The unstructured/unintended category is made up of C2C e-commerce performed in a venue which was not created for the purpose of facilitating C2C e-commerce. For example, chat rooms are created for various purposes, such as exchanging information regarding a particular topic (more examples of venues in this category are discussed in the Background section and represented in Figure 2). These venues, while unintended, can still facilitate C2C e-commerce. To demonstrate, consider a participant in a “horror movies” themed chat room who entered the chat room to simply discuss the overall theme. While this participant is chatting in the room, the participant determines he/she doesn’t have a copy of the current movie being discussed. In turn, he/she makes a request to the other participants to purchase a copy of the movie. Another participant indeed has an extra copy and informs the first participant of the price and acceptable method of payment (e.g., money order). Additional information such as name and address are then submitted by each participant. The payment and movie are then exchanged via postal mail. While the delivery of the payment and movie are not done online, the transaction was discussed, decided, and completed (in terms of the exchange of address information) through the chat room. So, while the intention of the chat room was not to facilitate C2C e-commerce, it was certainly a viable venue to conduct such a transaction.
Transactions performed under the unstructured/unintended category are done in an informal manner. While these venues can be hosted by a third party, there are no governing bodies to ensure that the transaction is completed as agreed. If one party submits payment and then does not receive the product/service, there are no guarantees that the individual will receive restitution. There are also no formalized payment methods set up on the venue itself. This may limit the ways in which consumers can send/receive payment. Compared to the structured/intended venues, consumers may find it more difficult to search for items they wish to purchase.
There are also no formalized rating systems for consumers to reference when determining if they want to transact with another consumer. Since the transactions in these venues are unintended, it may take longer for a consumer to receive information (i.e., description, price, comparison prices of other similar items, shipping cost, acceptable payments, etc.) regarding a particular product in order for the seller to gather and submit this information.
With this lack of structure and formalization may come a sense of distrust, which needs to be considered before a consumer feels comfortable in transacting with other consumers. Researchers will want to determine if there are differences not only between structured/intended and unstructured/unintended categories, but also between the various venues in the unstructured/unintended category regarding trust. For example, a consumer may feel more comfortable transacting with someone from their online community rather than someone who posted a product for sale on his blog.
FUTURE TRENDS
As C2C e-commerce continues to increase, so will the venues in which the phenomenon is occurring. Researchers will need to continue to study each aspect of these venues in order to determine the factors that will affect consumers in these areas. This article mainly discussed third party hosted sites with regard to both structured/intended and unstructured/unintended categories (with the exception of consumer blogs). One future trend might be that consumers begin holding online auctions on their own sites. In these cases, only the consumer owning the site would list items for sale. While the site would certainly contain aspects of the structured/intended (i.e., formality in auction, listing of payment methods, etc.), it would also have aspects of the unstructured/unintended category as well (i.e., any guarantees are only given by the consumer himself, and are not accountable for any standards set by a governing agency). In addition, consumers may wish to hold reverse auctions on their own sites. This, too, would fall somewhere between structured/intended and unstructured/unintended. In these cases, researchers will need to determine how that influences the factors affecting a consumer’s decision to participate. Also, social networking sites, such as MySpace.com and FaceBook.com, will be used more for C2C e-commerce, if not already. Many businesses (B2C e-commerce) are currently advertising in this manner.
There is much to be done in the research area of C2C e-commerce. One factor of particular interest is trust. Many research studies have been conducted regarding trust on the Web, trust in B2C e-commerce, and related areas; however, little has been done in the area of C2C e-commerce trust beyond looking at online auctions. Additionally, satisfaction with C2C e-commerce should be explored, as well as satisfaction with C2C e-commerce venues, and how these venues transform from an area of discussion to an area for conducting commerce. The emotional draw of one consumer to another consumer in online commerce should be fully explored, examining aspects such as age, gender, and education.
CONCLUSION
The C2C e-commerce venues taxonomy provides a way for research to be organized in this valuable area. It also provides a roadmap to aid researchers in the areas not yet explored. The taxonomy includes structured/intended (online auctions and third party listing services) and unstructured/unintended (online communities, Web-based discussion forums, consumer blogs, and chat rooms) categories. C2C e-commerce venues offer consumers a multitude of ways to buy/sell from other consumers, beyond just online auctions. Researchers have yet to explore commerce in the venues classified as unstructured/unintended; however, commerce is indeed taking place in these venues. Additional research is needed in each venue to understand the factors that affect a consumer’s decision to participate in C2C e-commerce.
KEY TERMS
C2C E-Commerce: Consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce, that is, the buying and/or selling of goods and services from one consumer to another consumer online.
C2C E-Commerce Venue: The place or format for which C2C e-commerce can be conducted.
Consumer Blog: A Web log that is created by a user to display journal-like entries.
Online Auction: An established online venue designed to allow consumers to buy and sell from one another.
Online Community: Otherwise known as a virtual community; an online venue that allows individuals with the same interests to interact, exchange ideas, and potentially determine the exchange of products.
Third Party Listing Service: An established online venue that is similar to using the classifieds; it allows consumers to post items online for sale and for other consumers to receive seller contact and product information so that a formal exchange can take place.
Web-Based Discussion Forum: An online venue that allows for the posting of and discussion of information related to a particular topic.
