What is E-MarketPlace |
E-" or "electronic" marketplace in a business-to-business context is primarily a large online platform (B2B portal) or website thatfacilitates interaction and/or transactions between buyers and suppliers at organizational or institutional rather than individual levels. Since the builders of such marketplaces primarily aim at facilitating buyer-seller interaction (in most cases without being a buyer or seller themselves), these are also referred to as "third-party" B2B marketplaces.
These marketplaces can do one or more of the following:
1.Help buyers find new suppliers and vice versa
2.Help reduce the time and cost of interaction for B2B transactions
3.Help increase trade between distant geographies and cultures
4.Help manage payments and track orders for B2B transactions
5.Help the environment by using appropriate technology that is environmentally friendly
Vertical e-Marketplace
A vertical e-marketplace or Vortal spans up and down every segment of one specific industry. Each level of the industry has access to every other level, which greatly increases collaboration. Buyers and sellers in the industry are connected to increase operatingefficiency and decrease supply chain costs, inventories and cycle times. This is possible because buying/selling items in a single industry standardizes needs, thereby reducing the need for outsourcing many products.
Horizontal e-Marketplace
A horizontal e-marketplace connects buyers and sellers across many industries. The most common type of materials traded horizontally are MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) materials. Mainly business and consumer articles, these items are in demand because they are crucial to the daily running of a business, regardless of industry and level within that industry. Many corporations have MRO materials bought directly on-line by the maintenance team in order to relieve the purchasing department.
No-frills e-Marketplace
Developed in response to customers wanting to purchase products without service (or with very limited service), the no-frills e-marketplace parallels the B2C offering of no-frills budget airlines. The subject of several Harvard and IMD articles/case-studies, no-frills B2B e-marketplaces enable the effective de-bundling of service from product via clear "business rules." This provides the basis of differentiation from conventional B2B sales/purchasing channels.
Etymology
The term "business-to-business" was originally coined to describe the electronic communication relations between businesses or enterprises in order to distinguish it from the communications between businesses and consumers (B2C). It eventually came to be used in marketing as well, initially describing only industrial or capital goods marketing. However, today it is widely used to describe all products and services used by enterprises.
Source : wikipedia.org
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