B2B · FROM DEFINITION TO BUSINESS RESEARCH B2B stands for Business-to-Business: trade between businesses. One business supplying another with products or services for its operations, production or resale is a B2B example. B2C focuses on sales to consumers for personal use. The same company can do both. A website, order quantity or payment method cannot establish the distinction alone. Check who buys and why in each transaction. 10 October 2026 · Manual transaction classification form Check the buyer and purpose before the channel. Compare B2B and B2C with three questions Question | B2B | B2C Who buys? | A business buying a product or service for its work; an individual may handle the conversation. | A consumer buying for personal or household use. What is the purchase for? | Business operations, production, service delivery or resale. | A personal need or household use. How does the purchase proceed? | It may be a simple web order or involve a quotation and several approvals. | It may be a direct order or involve research and a lengthy evaluation. This is a practical distinction for sales research. It does not determine legal consumer status. Purchase terms and rights should not be inferred from the label. Do not assume B2B purchases are always large, lengthy or purely “rational”, or that B2C purchases are always quick and inexpensive. A business can buy one item. An individual can spend a long time evaluating an expensive product. Research the process, quantity and decision roles separately. B2B e-commerce means conducting a transaction between businesses online. Buying through a website is not evidence of B2C. Requesting a quotation or paying by bank transfer is not sufficient evidence of B2B either. Record these as channel and payment information. [Square’s B2B explanation](https://squareup.com/gb/en/glossary/b2b) and [Kuveyt Türk’s business-model guide](https://www.kuveytturk.com.tr/blog/is-dunyasi/b2b-b2c-ve-c2c-is-modeli-nedir) explain how a business can operate B2B and B2C activities together. Assess transactions separately instead of applying one company label to every order. Assess four records from the same seller separately. **Entirely fictional example:** Koru Lighting sells desk lamps. Ece, Linea Café and Birlik Homeware are also invented. The quantities below illustrate the distinction. They are not market data, recommended thresholds, real customers or Anivo results. Completed transaction and inquiry record for Koru Lighting Transaction / inquiry | Known buyer and purpose | Decision and reason | Next check Ece buys one lamp through the website. | Ece will use the lamp on her desk at home. | B2C: the purchase is for personal use. The online channel did not establish this decision on its own. | The personal-use record is sufficient; keep it out of the reseller research group. Linea Café buys one lamp through the same website. | The café will use the lamp on its checkout counter. | B2B: the business buys for its own operations. A single item and a web order do not change that. | Record it as a business user. Do not infer its next purchasing need from this single order. Birlik Homeware buys 30 lamps through a quotation and bank transfer. | The shop will resell the lamps to its own customers. | B2B: the business buys for resale. Quantity and bank transfer are not the basis for the decision. | Record the reseller role; check product, territory and commercial fit separately. A contact requests a price for 20 lamps. | Who they buy for and what the lamps will be used for are unknown. | Hold: quantity does not explain the buyer or purpose. Do not decide B2B or B2C yet. | Ask: “Which person or business is this inquiry for, and are the lamps for home use, business use or resale?” The purpose is provided as part of the first three fictional transactions. In the fourth record, missing information remains missing. A price inquiry does not confirm an accepted order or purchasing authority. “One item is B2C; a bulk order is B2B” fails here. Linea Café is a business user even though it buys one lamp. The buyer and purpose remain unknown in the 20-lamp inquiry. These two counterexamples show why quantity is insufficient to determine the sales model. Businesses buying the same product are not necessarily the same customer group. The café uses the lamp; the shop resells it. What you supply and the questions you ask may differ. Use the [ideal customer profile guide](https://anivoapp.com/guides/ideal-customer-profile) to decide which types of business fit your offer. Record each sale and the intermediary’s role. This section uses a separate Koru → Birlik → Ece resale scenario. It does not continue Ece’s direct order from Koru in the previous table. The purpose is to distinguish two separate sales and their buyers. Three different connections involving the same fictional lamp Connection | Role in this connection | Supported decision Koru Lighting → Birlik Homeware | One business sells to another business that will resell the product. | This sale is B2B. The later buyer’s identity does not change the purpose of this connection. Birlik Homeware → Ece | The shop sells to Ece for use at home. | This sale is B2C. Do not count it as the same sale as the preceding supply transaction. The product is listed on a marketplace. | The platform’s role as buyer, seller or intermediary and the final buyer’s purpose are unspecified. | A listing alone cannot establish B2B, B2C or B2B2C. Check the parties to the transaction. This fictional example does not describe an ordering system, a platform contract or tax status. Separate sales in the chain require separate records. B2B2C stands for Business-to-Business-to-Consumer. It is used to describe businesses working together to reach consumers. Sources may use the label with different scopes. First establish who sells, who pays, who uses the product and who maintains the customer relationship. [BigCommerce’s B2B2C guide](https://www.bigcommerce.com/articles/b2b-ecommerce/b2b2c-ecommerce/) emphasizes partner roles and maintaining the brand and customer relationship. It distinguishes this from traditional resale. We therefore do not call every “manufacturer → shop → consumer” chain B2B2C. The first two sales above can be classified separately; the joint model requires more information. Research resellers separately from business users. “Find B2B companies” does not explain the research task sufficiently. Suppose Koru wants to research shops in Istanbul that could resell its desk lamps. That differs from researching cafés that use a lamp on their own counter. The following brief is for this fictional target. Completed business research brief: resellers in Istanbul Field | Definition for this example Product / task | Research businesses that may be suitable resellers of Koru Lighting’s desk lamps. The product and seller are fictional. Target buyer role | Shops selling desk lamps or related homeware to their own customers. Buyers using the product only in their own business are a separate target. Region | Istanbul. This defines the example’s research scope; delivery or distribution fit must be checked for each company. Information to check | The company’s product categories, reseller role, operating territory and who handles the relevant commercial conversation. Separate and hold rules | Keep businesses buying only for their own operations out of this reseller group. Hold unclear product categories or roles for verification. Questions to verify in conversation | Product fit, current supply arrangements, purchasing responsibility and possible terms for a conversation. Need, budget and timing are not already confirmed. This is a research hypothesis. It is not a research finding that demand exists in Istanbul, that these companies will buy or that the product’s commercial terms are suitable. A separate business-user brief could begin: “I want to research cafés that might use a desk lamp in their own business. I am not looking for resellers. I want to identify what needs checking about the use case and the relevant contact.” If you assess the same company in two roles, keep each research purpose explicit. Even when a company’s role fits, its need and the purchasing conversation require separate assessment. The [lead qualification guide](https://anivoapp.com/guides/lead-qualification) develops that decision. For channels and a daily working plan, continue to the [customer acquisition guide](https://anivoapp.com/guides/how-to-find-customers). BLANK TRANSACTION DECISION · REPEAT FOR EACH TRANSACTION Reviewer and review date: [ ] Transaction / enquiry ID and product or service inspected: [ ] Business acting as seller in this transaction: [ ] Buyer; on whose behalf they purchase and their business relationship: [ ] Purchase purpose: personal / business use / resale / unknown: [ ] Evidence source, date and the buyer’s actual statement: [ ] Sales channel; payer, payment method and intermediary platform if any: [ ] Decision: B2B / B2C / awaiting information; reason: [ ] Separate sales legs: who sells to whom; purpose and unknowns in each leg: [ ] If using B2B2C: known partnership, brand and customer-relationship roles: [ ] Missing information; one question to ask and next check: [ ] BLANK COMPANY RESEARCH BRIEF Your offer and the work it addresses: [ ] Buyer role to research: reseller / business user / another role: [ ] Country, region and product scope: [ ] Inclusion reason and dated information supporting it: [ ] Exclusion or hold reason: [ ] Other buyer group requiring a separate research brief: [ ] Still-unknown need, budget, authority and timing: [ ] Reason and question for the company note; next task: [ ] Person reviewing the research plan and approval/correction decision: [ ] This file contains original fictional examples and blank manual records. No Anivo or signup is required; it is not a product import format or automatic classifier. Use it for marketing and sales research; it does not determine legal consumer status. Channel, quantity, order value and payment method do not independently decide the model. A business buyer can sell to consumers. Retain unknown purposes as unknown; classification does not establish need, budget, authority or a sales outcome. Sources and review scope Checked on 10 October 2026. We read the relevant public educational sections. For the 2001 academic source, only the publisher’s abstract was accessible. These sources do not validate Anivo performance or the fictional examples. OpenStax: the business-to-business market https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/4-1-the-business-to-business-b2b-market Principles of Marketing, 25 January 2023. We read the relevant chapter text; a textbook source for the distinction between business and personal purchasing. BDC: Business-to-business glossary https://www.bdc.ca/en/articles-tools/entrepreneur-toolkit/templates-business-guides/glossary/business-to-business Canadian bank educational text dated 22 October 2024. We read the relevant definition and explanations; this is not independent research on sales effects. Square: B2B and mixed sales models https://squareup.com/gb/en/glossary/b2b We read the public glossary text. No precise publication date was visible. Used for B2B/B2C coexistence; provider product promises were not transferred to Anivo. Kuveyt Türk: B2B, B2C and C2C business models https://www.kuveytturk.com.tr/blog/is-dunyasi/b2b-b2c-ve-c2c-is-modeli-nedir Published 24 July 2024; updated 26 June 2026. We read the Turkish educational body and used it for the mixed-model distinction. Jewels and Timbrell: Towards a definition of B2C & B2B e-commerce https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2001/56/ ACIS 2001 Proceedings, paper 56. Publisher abstract only: a historical conceptual source on definitions and overlap. We did not treat it as a full-text or experimental-results review. BigCommerce: B2B2C e-commerce https://www.bigcommerce.com/articles/b2b-ecommerce/b2b2c-ecommerce/ We read the relevant definition and partner-role sections. No precise publication date was visible. Its brand and customer-relationship distinction was not treated as a universal definition or an Anivo feature.