The Hindu Business Line : C2C is happening!

All of a sudden the biggest of companies out there in the space of B2C selling are facing huge hurdles. Traditional ways and means of selling are just not bringing in the moolah. The good old way of doing things is just not as efficient in their delivery terms as they were a decade ago.

The two big formats of traditional selling are facing their biggest challenge ever. Both B2B and B2C selling systems are getting a jolt. The great Indian marketing meltdown is for real.

The best of companies with the best of B2C formats are facing the worst of crises. Topline sales growth is sluggish and bottomline growth is next to non-existent, particularly as the competitor of every hue out there is cutting prices.

Let's look at some history.

The B2B format of selling was the oldest of them all. A big business took the bulk of its product and sold it to another big business. This was a relatively easy business. This was a low margin-add business, but helped find a quick and ready market for whatever you produced, steel or soda ash!

The effort in B2B selling was pretty focused. The proprietor of the company turned salesman himself more often than not. This was the most nascent form of relationship marketing. Contacts helped play a big role. Reliability in the delivery process and the maintenance of a continuous supply chain were key parameters at play.

B2B selling brought to the fore a limited number of selling contacts. The span of control of the salesperson was very manageable. Selling, after a while, became just a simple job that involved delivery of a product at a pre-agreed price. The orders would be big but the margins were low. This was a comfortable business to be in.

Till the margins got lower and lower. Buying companies typically put more and more pressure on the seller and eventually killed the golden goose that decided to re-invent its selling model altogether.

The B2B salesperson sat down, gave the process at play a good thought-wash and realised that he was ready to play a different higher margin and higher value-add game all for himself. The B2B salesperson decided to go B2C! Here was an opportunity that would get him to access the customer directly.

In this manner of selling, he was to derive a better margin and a more durable customer base that did not threaten to vanish with the entry of a competitor in the same space of business.

B2C selling, however, required a different competence altogether. It required consumer touch, the ability to talk to and satisfy the needs, wants and desires of the consumer first hand. This was a savvy space of selling to be in.

B2C selling took off with a vengeance, till literally all selling in the marketplace was literally B2C. Look around today in the market for the selling system of sticking tape and soap alike. It is B2C everywhere.

The future is different. I strongly believe the future is all about C2C selling. A format that holds a distinct charm in the evolution of selling systems relevant to the consumer.

Look at it this way! B2B and B2C systems have outlived their utility in many ways. Both formats have been around for far too long. The seller's agenda is to sell at whatever cost. The buyer on the other hand is aware of this agenda. The buyer is all that more cautious as he watches every move of the seller with a great degree of distrust and cynicism.

The very life-script of a salesperson is to sell. And the life-script of a buyer is to buy from a salesperson who is to convince the buyer to buy. And the script is static. A self-fulfilling prophecy is forever at play in this relationship between salesperson and buyer at large.

C2C selling destroys this very paradigm sales systems work within. C2C selling brings in an ostensibly zero-agenda form of selling that is found to be more credible and more real. In this form of selling, a potential consumer buys the product or service from another consumer quite like him or her.

The consumer selling to another consumer is in many ways a genuine consumer who has been delighted by the product or service in question. The consumer turns evangelist when faced with delight in the product offering. This evangelism is the selling motive. The buying consumer revels in such evangelism and trusts it that much more than the normal selling line of the B2C salesperson knocking on his door!

Consumers trust consumers, at least for now. Till this trust remains a trust and does not turn into more consumer-cynicism, C2C selling will remain the best of the formats.

You will therefore buy your next car from a friend who will tie you up with the best deal that is there in the market. He will not only buy his own car, but he will commence a programme of consumer evangelism that will bring all his circle of friends into the buying programme. He will really start this entire community of consumer-evangelists who will evangelise the product.

You will buy the next lice-treatment formula from a consumer evangelist who will tell you which one works best, as it has worked for her in the past.

She will not only sell the formula to you, but she will make a margin on it as well! You will willingly pay this margin too, as she adds a value to this entire transaction that your friendly retailer at the corner kirana forgot to add in recent years.

The future in selling is C2C!

(The author is business strategy consultant and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults.)

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
C2C is happening!

`India among top 5 growth markets'

Adding to it

Needed: A savings behaviour model

Chairman Mike

Not quite in tune

Cave & save vs Rave & wave

A story of strength in images

Not just brands