B2B2C Overview
This topic provides an overview on the Business-to-Business-to-Consumer business model where companies sell products and services to channel partners who then sell them to end customers, with a focus on Zuora's Flexible Billing Attributes.
In Zuora's Flexible Billing Attributes of the Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) business model:
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Accounts represent the channel partners or resellers (the B2B layer).
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Subscriptions represent the individual end customers (the 2C layer).
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Invoices are sent to the channel partner, but include charges for multiple end customers.
Key considerations for B2B2C implementations:
When Flexible Billing Attributes is enabled, Sold To Contact at the invoice header level is not populated. This is because a single invoice can consolidate items from multiple subscriptions, each with different Sold To contacts. The Sold To information is stored at the invoice item level.
Invoice-level reporting and workflow logic cannot rely on Sold To Contact at the header level. Instead, query Sold To Contact information at the invoice item level. This is particularly important for B2B2C models where subscriptions represent end customers and accounts represent channel partners.
The Sold To Contact displayed on the Invoice Detail page is retrieved from the account's default Sold To Contact, but is not stored at the invoice header level.