Business Model Activities in C2C eCommerce

Abstract

Purpose: Business models aiming to extend product lifecycles are recognized as a market opportunity in retailing. While many retailers are evaluating their ambition to participate in the secondary market, prior C2C literature is showing only scarce attention to exploring it from the business perspective. The purpose of this explorative study is to identify and analyze business model value-creating activities in the context of C2C ecommerce. Design/methodology/approach: This multiple case study focuses on firms that instead of having pre-existence in traditional markets were established in the online environment from the offset. Each of the 18 case examples serve multisided C2C ecommerce markets (i.e., unstructured consumer markets), enabling supply and demand of used goods. The data includes descriptions of 362 identified actions systematically performed by the firms analyzed through qualitative research methods (formal content analysis, categorization, and comparison). Findings: The findings are presented inductively to help understand the current design of C2C ecommerce BMs, and also to generate a broader view of how traditional retailing can be challenged in the future. The findings identify the content of activity systems used in various business model types in secondary markets and compare the impacts of the choices between activity system structure, actors roles and burden of governance allocation. Originality/value: This study is among the first attempts to adopt a business perspective to previously consumer centric C2C ecommerce research. By doing this, the paper builds on the foundation of activity systems, lowering the level of abstraction in existing conceptual business model literature and providing tools to compare linear-and/or network-based business models. Furthermore, the findings provide new insights for firms that pursue, participate or refuse to enter the online-based secondary market.