Consumerto Consumer C2C

Last Updated on Wed, 15 Jun 2022 | Customer Relationships

Much consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online marketing and communication occurs on the Web between interested parties over a wide range of products and subjects. In some cases, the Internet provides an excellent means by which consumers can buy or exchange goods or information directly with one another. For example, Tradus, Amazon.com Auctions, Overstock.com, and other auction sites offer popular market spaces for displaying and selling almost anything, from art and antiques, coins and stamps, and jewelry to computers and consumer electronics.

eBay's C2C online trading community of more than 275 million registered users worldwide (greater than the combined populations of France, Germany, Italy, and Britain!) transacted some $60 billion in trades last year. At any given time, the company's Web site lists more than 115 million items up for auction in more than 50,000 categories. Such C2C sites give people access to much larger audiences than the local market or newspaper classifieds (which, by the way, have also gone online at Web sites such as Craigslist.com and eBay's Kijiji.com). Interestingly, based on its huge success in the C2C market, eBay has now attracted more than 500,000 B2C sellers, ranging from small businesses peddling their regular wares to large businesses liquidating excess inventory at auction.42

In other cases, C2C involves interchanges of information through Internet forums that appeal to specific special-interest groups. Such activities may be organized for commercial or noncommercial purposes. An example is Web logs, or blogs, online journals where people post their thoughts, usually on a narrowly defined topic. Blogs can be about anything, from politics or baseball to haiku, car repair, or the latest television series. There are currently about 15 million active blogs read by 57 million people. Such numbers give blogs— especially those with large and devoted followings—substantial influence.43

Many marketers are now tapping into blogs as a medium for reaching carefully targeted consumers. One way is to advertise on an existing blog or to influence content there. Consider this example:44

When Nescafé launched its Dolce Gusto coffee maker in France last year, it turned to bloggers. It placed an ad on French Web site BlogBang.com, which has a community of more than 2,000 bloggers. The site sent a message to its members telling them about the ad campaign, which came in the form of an interactive game. The bloggers were asked to put a link to the game on their sites. In return, Dolce Gusto's home page posted links to the blogs that joined up. "The advantage of using blogs is that the message gets around very quickly," says the Dolce Gusto brand manager, "and it focuses on our target audience" of 25- to 35-year-olds. "It really created a marketing buzz." Within three weeks of its launch, Dolce Gusto's ad was displayed on 500 blogs, and 320,000 people had played the online game.

Other companies set up their own blogs. AFor example, GM maintains a blog called FastLane that helps it connect with its core consumers in a virtual grassroots kind of way. The log is penned by GM executives, including Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who some claim is the big reason for its popularity. The company says it wants all kinds of feedback—so the blog includes both positive and negative comments from readers. Says Lutz, "I'd say the biggest surprise is the passion in which people respond and comment on the blogs. You're getting the real deal there. There is so much passion that even the negative comments are palatable, and indeed, often helpful." The FastLane blog receives about 3,000 visitors a day, helping GM build or rebuild relationships with customers. "If there is a gap between GM's excellence and people's perception of it, we believe blogs are a

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online marketing

Online exchanges of goods and information between final consumers.

©Bob Lutz Answers More FastLane Questions

By Christopher Barger

Director, GM Giotaai communications Technology

©Bob Lutz Answers More FastLane Questions

By Christopher Barger

Director, GM Giotaai communications Technology

Ok, so here's the next installment in the video-answers series — Bob addressing some of your comments on Buick.

If it seems like it's 3 little out of order, that's because ft is... like I mentioned in the comments to Friday's post, we cut the video into four parts and this one was supposed to be first, but when converting it we had an audio/visual sync issue to fix. Rather than delay the whole series till we got it fixed, we decided to just put up the dip that was ready (concept cars), even though it was out of order.

But we got it fmed, so here's the first video from the series, only posted second; Bob on Buiefc ana its fit in the GM portfolio. Oh, and one last note: when Bob says "Buick" in the beginning, he means "China".,, you'll see what he means when you watch it.

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