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Part 2  Strategy and applications

Electronic B2B marketplaces

 are variously known as ‘marketplaces, exchanges or hubs’. 

Typically they are intermediaries that are part of the reintermediation (Chapter 2, p. 54) phe‑

nomenon and are independent of buyers and suppliers.

Why did so many B2B marketplaces fail?

After a great deal of hype at the turn of the millennium, many B2B marketplaces have closed. 

Examples of independent B2B exchanges mentioned in the previous edition are Chemdex 

(

www.chemdex.com

), Vertical Net (

www.vertical.net

), CommerceOne Marketsite (

www.

commerceone.com

) and Covisint (

www.covisint.net

), none of which now exists in its origi‑

nal form. In January 2001, Dell shut down one of its B2B online marketplaces, called Dell 

Marketplace, only four months after it opened, citing the lack of a mature e‑commerce mar‑

ketplace. Computer World (2001a) reported that of an estimated 900 business‑to‑business 

websites that were functioning worldwide in  mid‑  2000, a little more than 400 were left by 

 end‑  2000. Despite this, enthusiasm for the B2B marketplace concept still seems quite strong. 

Today, Googling ‘B2B Exchanges’ shows that just a handful are still active.

The B2B exchange intermediaries that remain seem to be mainly for commodities or 

simple services (for example, EC21 (

www.ec21.com

), Elance (

www.elance.com

) and eBay 

Business (

http://business.ebay.com

)). One of the top categories on eBay Business is for trac‑

tors, with bids of between $10,000 and $20,000 common; another is photocopiers with over 

3,000 listed, with a maximum price of $65,000.