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This page provides answers to common questions about B2BCMarket, its marketplace structure, connected entities, catalog architecture, participants, and marketplace operations.
B2BCMarket is a connected marketplace platform designed to bring businesses, companies, branches, products, buyers, sellers, and merchants together within one structured marketplace ecosystem.
Unlike a marketplace where products exist only as individual listings, B2BCMarket connects marketplace offerings with their surrounding business context.
B2BC represents:
B2BCMarket supports different marketplace relationships so businesses can participate according to their business model.
Learn about Marketplace Models
BCEA stands for B2BCMarket Connected Entity Architecture.
It is the architectural model used to organize B2BCMarket's public marketplace entities and their relationships.
The primary relationship is:
Business → Company → Branch → Product
Each public entity can have its own public identity and can be independently accessed while remaining connected to related entities.
A Business represents the broader business context within B2BCMarket.
A business can contain one or more companies and provides the broader organizational context for those companies.
A Company represents a company-level presence within a Business.
A company can maintain its profile, branding, contact information, marketplace status, and connected branches.
A Branch represents a company's branch or operational location.
A branch can contain geographic information, address information, service-area information, contact information, and products available through that branch.
A Product represents a marketplace offering connected to its business context.
Product information can include classification, countries, packaging, inventory, images, and marketplace status.
A product can also maintain contextual connections to its Business, Company, and Branch.
Yes. Connected navigation is one of the central concepts of B2BCMarket.
Users can navigate from:
Business → Company → Branch → Product
Product → Branch → Company → Business
This allows users to explore marketplace offerings together with their surrounding business context.
Learn about Connected Navigation
Yes.
Each public entity has its own public identity and can be independently accessed.
At the same time, the entities remain connected through their relationships.
This allows B2BCMarket to combine independent accessibility with contextual relationships.
A public identifier is an identifier used to identify a public marketplace entity through its public representation.
Internal database identifiers can remain private while public entities use their own public identifiers for catalog and navigation purposes.
A catalog page is a publicly accessible representation of a marketplace entity.
B2BCMarket can provide catalog representations for:
These representations remain connected to related entities through public catalog URLs.
Learn about Catalog Architecture
The XML catalog represents the same underlying entity relationships used by the marketplace.
The XML architecture does not create a separate relationship model. Instead, it represents the existing relationships between Business, Company, Branch, and Product.
This allows the public website and machine-readable catalog representations to reflect the same marketplace structure.
Yes.
B2BCMarket can provide machine-readable representations of marketplace information through technologies such as XML catalogs, sitemaps, JSON-LD structured data, and public URLs.
These representations help automated systems understand and discover marketplace entities and their relationships.
B2BCMarket can support different geographic marketplace strategies, including:
Learn about Marketplace Strategies
B2BCMarket is designed for multiple types of marketplace participants, including:
Buyers can discover products and services through the connected catalog structure.
Instead of viewing an offering without context, buyers can explore the related branch, company, and business.
Learn about the Buyer Experience
Sellers can establish their marketplace presence through the connected business structure.
Depending on their organization, a seller can work with Business, Company, Branch, and Product entities.
Learn about the Seller Ecosystem
Merchants participate in the B2BCMarket ecosystem through marketplace-related business opportunities.
Merchant participation can be connected with marketplace activity and revenue-sharing opportunities.
Learn about the Merchant Ecosystem
B2BCMarket can support different types of marketplace offerings, including:
Product visibility can depend on the marketplace state of the product, its branch, and its marketplace relationship.
The public catalog is intended to represent offerings that are currently eligible for marketplace representation.
Learn about Product Visibility
Orders and payments represent commercial activity associated with marketplace offerings.
They connect marketplace discovery with commercial transactions between participating parties.
Learn about Orders and Payments
Subscriptions represent subscription-based capabilities that may be available to participating users or businesses.
Subscription functionality is separate from the core connected entity architecture.
Revenue sharing provides a mechanism through which eligible marketplace participants can participate in revenue generated through marketplace activity.
Public URLs provide direct access to marketplace entities and their catalog representations.
Public identifiers are incorporated into the marketplace's public addressing structure so that entities can be independently accessed.
A product can exist as an underlying business entity, but its public marketplace representation is connected to the branch through which it is offered.
This connection allows buyers and other users to understand where the offering belongs within the broader business structure.
Yes.
A branch can have multiple products assigned to it.
The branch catalog can therefore provide navigation from the branch to its marketplace products.
Yes.
A company can contain multiple branches or operational locations.
Each branch can have its own public identity and can contain its own marketplace product relationships.
Yes.
A Business can contain one or more Companies.
This allows B2BCMarket to represent larger or more complex business structures.
The connected structure provides context.
A buyer does not have to view a product as an isolated listing. The buyer can move through the marketplace relationship and understand the branch, company, and business associated with that offering.
Product
↓
Branch
↓
Company
↓
Business
The Getting Started page provides a guided introduction to the marketplace.
The Connected Entity Architecture and Catalog Architecture pages provide the best starting points for understanding the technical and structural organization of B2BCMarket.
Continue exploring the B2BCMarket introduction through the following pages:
The central concept behind B2BCMarket can be summarized simply:
Business
↓
Company
↓
Branch
↓
Product
Each entity can exist independently while remaining connected to the marketplace context around it.
This connected approach allows B2BCMarket to provide a consistent marketplace experience for businesses, buyers, sellers, and merchants.