B2B describes business-to-business activity, while B2C describes business-to-consumer activity. Cambridge documents uppercase and lowercase variants plus B-to-B/B-to-C forms, so capitalization should follow house style while the underlying meanings stay distinct.
ReviewedEvidence2 sourcesSectionWriting & Style
Quick answer
B2B means business-to-business; B2C means business-to-consumer. Use the abbreviation that matches who the business is selling to or transacting with.
Key details
Core IssueB2B means business-to-business, while B2C means business-to-consumer; both are established business abbreviations with documented case/form variants.
Phrase Rolebusiness-model abbreviations
Registerbusiness, marketing, and professional writing
Important caveats
Formatting Boundary
Cambridge documents B2B/b2b/B-to-B and B2C/b2c/B-to-C variants; choose one house style and keep it consistent.
Further guidance
Meaning Difference
B2B concerns arrangements or trade between businesses; B2C concerns sales or services from businesses to consumers.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
CAGR means compound annual growth rate, a smoothed annualized growth rate over a period longer than one year. Use the uppercase initialism consistently and state the start/end period; do not imply that CAGR shows volatility or the exact growth in each intervening year.
Care of, abbreviated c/o, is an addressing device for routing correspondence through another person or place. It should be kept distinct from attention lines, CC fields, and other communication labels.
EBITDA means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization; it is a widely used financial performance metric but not itself a GAAP or IFRS line item. Write EBITDA in capitals, define it for non-specialist readers, and avoid presenting it as a standardized GAAP/IFRS measure without qualification.
LLC is an abbreviation for “limited liability company.” In running text and company names, preserve the organization’s official legal styling rather than inventing punctuation or expanding it unnecessarily.
PO box means a numbered post-office box used to receive mail. Cambridge records forms including “PO box,” “PO Box,” and American “P.O. Box,” so formatting can depend on address style and regional convention.
