Taxonomy of C2C E-Commerce Venues

Abstract

The most cited and researched example of C2C e-commerce is through online auctions such as eBay. However, there are many other venues for conducting C2C e-commerce that should be explored that may not necessarily be apparent. As demonstrated by existing research in C2C e-commerce, researchers have focused their studies on venues in which C2C e-commerce is the specified purpose of a site. In addition to these venues, C2C e-commerce can be facilitated in places such as online communities, Web-based discussion forums, consumer blogs, and chat rooms. Each of these venues needs to be explored before a complete representation of C2C e-commerce can be made. Differences in how a consumer views each of the C2C e-commerce venues may be expected to alter the factors affecting his/her determination to participate in C2C e-commerce in the various venues. To help researchers in structuring the potential venues and classifying factors affecting participation, this article presents a taxonomy of the C2C e-commerce venues and a description of the types of venues found in the categories. The next section provides a background discussion of each venue discussed in the taxonomy. Following that will be the presentation of the taxonomy. Future trends and conclusions are provided at the end of the article.