Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

230 BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET MARKETING
decide to eventually build one of your own, if not for the outside world,
then for your employees. In a February 8, 1999, cover story, the publication
InformationWeek suggested, “A growing number of businesses
are adapting the portal’s gateway-to-the-world model as an efficient
way for their employees to access critical information online.” The article
went on to report that enterprise portals will make it possible for
companies to not only share internal information, but for employees to
use the portal as a “starting point…to access real-time and historical
information…all from their browsers.”
Forrester Research (www.forrester.com) confirms that business portals
will be an Internet force in the coming years, suggesting they will
drive a Web business information market that will reach $11 billion
worldwide by 2004.
Auctions
Auction sites can be considered Internet communities in the sense that
they bring buyers and sellers together with the common goal of conducting
commerce. For the b-to-b marketer, auction sites may provide
useful opportunities to more widely promote products and services beyond
traditional audiences.
The business-oriented virtual mall offers merchants an opportunity
to associate as part of a group of merchants who take advantage of the
publicity and e-commerce engine of a larger site. Although virtual malls
may lack daily excitement, auction sites have brought a fast and furious
brand of electronically enabled old-time commerce to the Internet. As
such, auction sites have become a hot commodity on the Internet, even in
the b-to-b space. Here are some auction sites and providers that b-to-b
marketers should know about.
eBay (www.ebay.com)
eBay, founded in 1995, is the auction site that started it all. It considers
itself very much a community. As of Q1 2001, the eBay community
served 18.9 million registered users representing over 150 different countries.
eBay operates sites in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
France, Germany, Japan, and Australia. In 2000, the eBay
community transacted over $5 billion in annualized gross merchandise
sales, according to the company.