Exploring business-to-business marketsites

Business-to-business (B2B) marketsites are quickly becoming one of the major issues for companies in their search for opportunities to improve visibility of their trading activities and sources of further cost reduction. The paper begins with a synthesis of potential benefits resulting from participation in marketsites and then provides a number of initial classifications of marketsites. The paper then introduces some of the major inhibitors and enablers of marketsites and views these from a number of perspectives such as the structure of marketsites, the degree of centricity and the types of products purchased through such marketsites. Finally, some recommendations for further research are made.