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Reasons for limited adoption of e‑marketplaces

Johnson (2010) has investigated the reasons for limited adoption. Based on interviews with 

purchasing managers in a range of sectors, he believes the most significant are potentially 

misguided perceptions of the benefits, risks and trust in partners. However, these percep‑

tions may be valid. He gives one example of a marketplace servicing the aerospace and 

defence industry where it couldn’t recruit sufficient small suppliers because the e‑market 

charged the same fee to all suppliers regardless of their size. The e‑market charged suppliers 

$4,000 per year to use its catalogue software tool to create their own electronic catalogues, 

and a yearly subscription fee of $390. Although most small suppliers could afford the sub‑

scription, many could not afford to pay $4,000 per year in order to create electronic cata‑

logues on the e‑market.