The basic services that these platforms can provide to consumers include: providing electronic catalogs, helping users search and find the goods they need, adding to shopping carts, placing orders, canceling and modifying orders, paying through the Internet, tracking the status of orders, evaluating goods, comparing similar products, helping users make purchasing decisions, etc. The basic services that the platform can provide to sellers include: publishing product information, publishing and managing online advertisements, handling customer orders, completing customer settlement of products, processing customer payments, establishing interfaces with logistics and distribution systems, tracking product sales, implementing customer relationship management, providing after-sales services, and purchasing, storage, and financial management.
When sellers sell goods on the platform, they can generally sell them in the form of auctions, fixed prices (buy now), and auctions + buy now. The auction form refers to selling items to the highest bidder within a certain period of time, that is, the seller provides an item and sets a starting price. During the auction, buyers bid on the posted items. After the auction, the highest bidder buys the item at the winning bid amount.
The Buy It Now (Buy Now) format means that the seller offers one or more items and sets a fixed price. Buyers do not need to go through the bidding process before bidding, and can directly buy the items. In other words, buyers can only purchase items at the set price.
The Auction + Buy It Now format means that the seller offers an item and adds a Buy It Now price to the auction format, and the two coexist. Buyers can choose to bid on the item or buy it immediately. If a buyer chooses “Buy It Now” first, he can directly use the fixed price to buy the item immediately. Once someone bids on the item first, the price and function of “Buy It Now” will disappear, and the item will be auctioned in a normal form.
Different cross-border B2C platforms have different main selling methods. For example, the eBay platform allows the above three selling methods, but AliExpress only allows the fixed price method.