e-Commerce is the marketplace of the future.

What is Marketplace ?

Markets (electronic or otherwise) have three main functions:

1. Matching buyers and sellers;
2. Facilitating the exchange of information, goods, services, and payments associated with market transactions; and
3. Providing an institutional infrastructure, such as a legal and regulatory framework, which enables the efficient functioning of the market.

Electronic marketplaces (e-marketplaces or marketspaces), changed several of the processes used in trading and supply chains

• Greater information richness
• Lower information search costs for buyers
• Diminished information asymmetry between sellers and buyers
• Greater temporal separation between time of purchase and time of possession
• Buy now, receive later
• Greater temporal proximity between time of purchase and time of possession
• Buy now, receive almost instantly
• Ability of buyers and sellers to be in different locations

In E-marketplace, people buy and sell physical products online.

 

The Essential Elements and Mechanisms of an Electronic Market

Types of e-Marketplaces

1. e-Marketplaces for B2C:

• storefronts and Internet malls

2. e-Marketplaces for B2B:

• Private e-marketplaces (Online markets owned by a single company; may be either sell-side or buy-side e-marketplaces. sell-side e-marketplace : a private e-marketplace in which a company sells either standard or customized products to qualified companies. buy-side e-marketplace : A private e-marketplace in which a company makes purchases from invited suppliers.)
• Public e-marketplaces. B2B marketplaces, usually owned and/or managed by an independent third party, that include many sellers and many buyers; also known as exchanges.