The development of B2B2C in marketing theory and practice: Conceptual foundations and qualitative insights

This paper explores why more and more business-to-business companies take greater account of the end consumer in their business activities. Drawing on extant literature and in-depth interviews with marketing and sales executives from the construction industry, this study conceptualizes the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) business model and reveals the reasons for adopting a B2B2C model from a managerial perspective. The results contribute to extant literature in two ways. First, this study conceptualizes B2B2C from a managerial perspective, delineating it from related marketing terms. Second, it uncovers intra-organizational, strategic, consumer-oriented, technology-oriented, and external reasons for adopting a B2B2C model. It uncovers capturing market share in an increasingly digitalized environment as main reason. It is the first study to combine managerial insights with extant literature on indirect and multistage marketing and integrate it into the B2B2C literature.