Future of Business : B2B Auction Websites & Infomediaries
The person-to-person auction format on Ebay.com may be coming to an end, especially if they don’t change their rules and regulations to protect the integrity of the marketplace. This is the problem Ebay users are facing across the globe. The increased quality of counterfeits and growing organized piracy organizations bring a very questionable future to Ebay and similar sites.
I would just turn Ebay into a Business-To-Business Auction website, where supplies may be purchased in wholesale with long-term guaranteed seller-buyer identification. This would save ebay the troubles of having to become to localized and fragmented, while ensuring future growth. Setting up a standardized marketplace for all the latest b2b transactions presents ample opportunities. A social market could be established, through which the auction introduces a buyer and a seller, whom are both interested in long-term business contacts.
Ebay acts as a third party to continually verify buyer and seller, while providing a full Audio Video (Video Cast, Skype VoIP) business experience to best connect the buyers/ sellers. They could take it a step further by getting industry business leaders to collaborate on wikis to discuss their products/ markets/ strategies. GlobalSources.com would become Ebays biggest competitor, but they don’t have the transaction, verification, and social collaboration that Ebay already has setup. Ebay needs to stop dealing with these “sketchy” short-term one-time online transactions and start seeing the bigger, long-term, highly-variable, cutting edge, multi-transaction online business potentials.
This whole view is further supported by the true value-added business relationships possible with info-intermediaries. Value is seen by buyers as low cost (auction format), and value to the seller is repeat business (from being established, especially as an Industry Infomediary). Ebay has the auction capabilities to provide these intermedaries with the highest perceived value available worldwide. If they don’t head down such a path, someone else surely will.
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 am
Hey Aust. Interesting thoughts. I like being one of those sketchy people on eBay though. They should just start an entirely second platform for B2b
December 19th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
That is an interesting idea and I think it may appeal to smaller businesses. I think larger businesses would stick to tendering amongst themselves, though. There are already levels of legal and commercial protection there.
There’s also the fact that a best offer in negotiations doesn’t necessarily come down to the highest bid, which is what eBay seems to allow. It may be better for your business to accept a lower bid if you’re likely to do business with that customer for a long time (e.g. Company A offers $100 for 100 bananas. Company B offers $75 for 100 bananas, but will sign a 5-year contract to purchase bananas from only you).
It’s a daft example, but if you’re thinking of designing or pitching a B2B eBay, it may be something to keep in mind anyway.