Business-to-business electronic commerce (B2B) typically takes the form of automated processes between trading partners and is performed in much higher volumes than business-to-consumer (B2C) applications. For example, a company that makes chicken feed would sell it to a chicken farm, another company, rather than directly to consumers. An example of a B2C transaction would be a consumer buying grain-fed chickens at a grocery store. B2B can also encompass marketing activities between businesses, and not just the final transactions that result from marketing. B2B also is used to identify sales transactions between business. For example a company selling photocopiers would likely be a B2B sales organisation as opposed to a B2C (business to consumer) sales organisation.

B2B standards
UN/EDIFACT is one of the most well known and established B2B standards. ANSI ASC X12 is a popular standard in North America. RosettaNet is an XML based, emerging B2B standard in the high tech industry. An approach like UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology (UMM) might be used to capture the collaborative space of B2B business processes.