What is business-to-business? Experts define Business-to-business (B2B) in different texts:
1. "Business-to-business commerce includes a broad range of inter-company transactions."
Different from B2B, B2C (Business to Customer) includes transactions between a business to its customers.
2. "Business-to-business (B2B) describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer." [1]
3. On the Internet, B2B (business-to-business), also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.[2]
4. A type of commerce transaction that exists between businesses, such as those involving a manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer.[3]
If you are into b2b marketing, you can take a look at this definition:
"B2B marketing is the management process responsible for the facilitation of exchange
between producers of goods and services and their organisational customers."[4]
Although B2B is much different from B2C (business to customer), B2B conveys the idea that business to customer (customer is a business, a company, an organisation, an institution...). Therefore the transaction is large and the value is large, too. B2B takes more risk than B2C since a business has a smaller number of customers. This means that they takes more impacts by an individual business customer.
Source:
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business-to-business
2. searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/B2B
3. investopedia.com/terms/b/btob.asp
4. chapter4 B2B buying behavior