Business-to-business service providers have a wide range of tactics they can deploy to gain new clients or customers. Direct mail; cold calling; TV, radio or print advertising are all ways in which B2B services gain new customers. In the last 10 years, the Internet has become another strategy to boost business, through advertising, web site optimization and online lead generation.

What is Online Lead Generation?

Simply put, online lead generation automatically sends information on prospective clients and their service needs to your e-mail inbox or to a web site account. Internet services such as ProcureAPro.com provide your business with an account where you can upload your business profile, location, hours of operation, client testimonials, and licensing information. Potential customers fill out a form online with their requirements for what kind of service they need, that potential client is matched with B2B providers for that service in their local area (or nationally, if the situation warrants), and the client’s information is e-mailed to the matched B2B providers.

What Kind of Information Do Potential Clients Provide?

When a potential client fills out a form to request B2B services, they provide their name, phone number, location, and type of service needed. Depending on what kind of B2B service the client needs, they may provide even more detail, such as when they need the work completed; their target audience (for marketing services); the size of their staff (for human resources and other business services); technical requirements; the size of their office space (for furniture and other facilities services); and more.

Can Online Lead Generation Work for My Business?

Mark Shulimson, manager of ProcureAPro.com says "We use a number of both automated and human quality assurance checks to ensure the quality of our requests." While receiving a lead from a potential client is a major part of the equation, salesmanship comes into play. How you approach the potential client when you contact them is a big factor in whether you can convert a lead into a customer. "Once you receive a request, actively following up with them is key. Don’t be passive, don’t let email do the work for you, pick up the phone and make your presentation in person", says Mr. Shulimson. "Give potential customers reasons to hire you and a sense of urgency. Why should this customer act now? ‘I’m usually booked but have an opening in my schedule this week’." Be sure that the person who contacts potential clients knows your business, pricing structure, licenses, experience and availability.

What Will it Cost Me?

Fee structures for online lead generation service vary widely. Fees also vary depending on what kind of B2B service you provide. "However pricing is structured you need to look at the Return on Investment or ROI. At ProcureAPro, our vendors setup a monthly budget. Say for example $100 budget for lead generation. At the end of a specified time period answer the question I spent $100 did I receive $100 worth of value? Most of the time the answer is going to be yes!"

The bottom line is that online lead generation is a cost-effective tool that can help you gain more customers. Using online lead generation in combination with traditional marketing techniques can help you build a string and success B2B service business.

Kristen Steingrandt has been in web marketing since 1999, working on everything from affiliate programs to PPC to SEO.

For more information, contact ProcureAPro at http://www.procureapro.com, customersupport@respond.com, or call 1-866-638-5323.

ProcureAPro.com is powered by Respond, an online community with 2.5 million members.

by Jamila White, “The E-Commerce Diva”

In the rush to keep up with technology, many African-American business owners are so busy trying to add the latest bells and whistles to their Web sites, get to the top of the search engines, and learn the latest database technology that they often forget this simple fact: people do business with other *people*, not computers. Understanding the importance of relationships is key to attracting African-American buyers online. Here are a few practical tips to getting Black customers to buy more
from your Website.

Step 1: Make a personal connection… put a face on it.

Adding photos of realistic-looking people to your Web site will
increase your sales. Photos jump out from a page, so even if someone just skims over the words, the photo will create a lasting impression. If you don’t have photos of your actual employees or customers, use stock
photography.

Here are a few of my favorite sources for photos:

o FotoSearch: http://www.fotosearch.com

o Getty: http://www.gettyimages.com

o Corbis: http://www.corbis.com

Royalty-free images start at around $19-35 per image and are much less expensive than rights-managed images. If you have a bigger budget, you can purchase CDs with entire collections of African American stock photographs and illustrations.

Step 2: Establish trust.

When you walk into an establishment, you usually can tell right away if you feel comfortable doing business there. You can see if the place is clean and well maintained, brightly lit, and whether someone friendly is available to greet and help you. On the Internet, your Web site has to do all the talking and all the handholding. If this is a potential customer’s first
visit to your Web site, they may be uncertain if you’re a legitimate business and if they can trust you.

There are a number of ways to alleviate these fears and give your
customers peace of mind. First, provide full contact information — including a telephone number — on your Web site. Second, show a picture of your location and employees, if applicable. Third, if you are a member of any professional organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau and/or professional trade organizations, this is a great time to display your membership logos. Most importantly, display quotes and testimonials for your current happy customers to show how what great quality
products and service your company provides.

Step 3: Use the “word of mouth” network.

From the griots of Africa to barbershops and hair salons to the chat rooms on BlackPlanet.com, at the center of African American culture is the oral tradition. Use this ready-made network to your advantage, and give people the tools to tell their friends and colleagues about your products. A greatway to do this is with an instant “Tell a Friend”
button on your Web site. Constant Contact (see Step #6) includes this service as part of it’s e-newsletter management program.

Step 4: Network with other Black Web sites.

One way to jump-start the flow of traffic to your Web site is by
recruiting customers from other high-traffic sites. You can buy ad space on a well-trafficked site that also attracts a high percentage of your target market. A cheaper alternative is to swap ads with a business that offers products or service that complement, but don’t compete with, your own offering. For example, if you offer Web site design, look for
someone who offers Web site hosting or network services. This strategy can work both with ads on a Web site, but don’t overlook swapping ads in each business’ promotional e-mail newsletter. (NOTE: Do *not* swap customer databases or lists of email addresses unless you have specific permission from your customers to do so.)

Step 5: Give your customers a reason to act now.

How many times have you visited a Web site and thought to yourself:
“What a great product! I’d like to buy it, but I think I’ll come back later.” Did you actually go back and buy it? Perhaps not. Help your customers make their decision today: make them an offer they can’t refuse. For example, use promotions like “limited time only”, “this week only”, “act today and take $10 off,” etc.

Step 6: Keep in touch.

Remember, it’s about relationships. Did you know that customers who buy online usually do so on the fourth to eighth visit to your Web site, and not the first visit? So you’ll need to come up with a strategy to get them back to your Web site a second, third, and fourth time. The easiest, simplest, and cheapest method, hands down, is an e-mail list. It isn’t enough just to collect e-mail addresses on your Web site and at your vending events — you have to actually *write* and *send* messages to the list! Strive to get your newsletter out at least twice a month, but if you’re just getting started, do quarterly, then build up to monthly, and then build up to every other week.

Here are a few e-mail list services I like:

o Aweber: http://www.aweber.com/?203887

o Constant Contact: http://www.roving.com

o YahooGroups (free): http://www.yahoogroups.com

Essentially, what successful online marketing boils down to, regardless of ethnicity, is relationships, relationships, relationships. Find meaningfulways to connect with your customers, and they will not only reward you with their loyalty, but they’ll be happy to spread the word about your Web site as well.

ฉ Copyright 2004 Jamila White. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jamila White, "The E-Commerce Diva", is an Internet Strategist, Web
Designer, and E-Commerce instructor in the Washington D.C. area. For a FREE subscription to her “Sell More Online” e-newsletter, go to http://www.ecommercediva.com.

[NOTE: You are welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end and the copyright notice), and you send a copy of your reprint to info@jamilawhite.com.]

E-commerce is gaining pace! Research firm eMarketer predicts that
2003 will see online sales reaching US $58.2 billion excluding
travel. According to Forrester Research, another reputable research
company, business to consumer e-commerce will hit US $230 billion
by the year 2008. While offline retail sales are staggering and
will continue to do so in near term, online retail sales will
show a hefty 19 percent consecutive year over year growth! And
by the same year, two third of all US households will buy some
kind of products and services online. In 2003 alone 97 million
consumers will make some kind of purchases through the Internet.

If you are selling products and services offline, you should
seriously consider hopping on to the e-commerce bandwagon, or risk
loosing significant portion of your business to your more
proactive competitors!

Is it difficult to start selling products or services online?

May be, in the beginning of Internet era, this was a daunting
task, but today, with proper planning it is fairly easy.

- Choose the products or services that are viable to sell over the Internet

- Build an online presence

- Create an online product catalog

- Choose payment methods

- Promote

Select products or services to sell

Although, some products are easier to sell online, contrary to
popular believe, most of the products and services are, actually,
marketable on the Internet. At present, books, electronics,
information and travel related products are selling better online.
But, that does not mean that there is no room for other products
or services. As a matter of fact, you can sell just about
anything over the Internet! It depends more on the market segment
you choose, and how good you are in marketing. As you know,
traditional items that you can get in nearest grocery store
were not doing very well on the Internet. However, that is
going to change very soon! According to Forrester Research
many of today’s slow categories are poised to significant
growth as oppose to early online sales leaders like travel
and electronics, which will experience market maturity and
slower growth. Prediction is:

Food and beverage category will grow at a rate of 49 percent,
reaching $18.2 billion by 2007. The home products category
will grow by 42 percent over five years, from $7.3 billion
in 2002 to $42.0 billion in 2007. Flowers, cards, and gifts
will grow by 41 percent, from $951 million in 2002 to $5.3
billion in 2007.

That’s not all! By the year 2008, today’s best selling product:
books will have a mere 3 percent share of total business to
consumer online sales.

So, if your products and services can generate offline sales
there should not be any problem in selling these items online.

Build online presence

You can choose to build an e-commerce website either yourself
by hiring required experts, i.e. web programmers or by
appointing a website developing company to do the job for
you. In both of the cases, you have to be prepared to spend
a significant amount of money. E-commerce site is a very
broad terminology! Depending on you demand, it can cost you
from a modest US $800 to any where over a million US dollar!
That’s not all! You have to be prepared to spare considerable
time on it, as well. Writing the technical scope, choosing
the appropriate design for your site and creating proper
content for your site will take a lot of your time. And
there is no guarantee that you will do everything right!

That’s why, if you are new to e-commerce and do not want
to spend a fortune in your first endeavor, you should think
about making your online presence by choosing one of the
available, on the Internet, Web Store services. There are
enormous advantages of using these services:

- You can build one for a fraction of the cost, needed to create an e-commerce website.

- You can choose the design of your web store from numerous available templates.

- Simple editor allows you creating your web store all by yourself.

- You can be up and running within days.

- You can choose a merchant account from the one offered by the service provider.

There are many Web Store service providers on the Internet
like Yahoo! Store, Bigstep, Rusbiz, etc. Compare and choose
the one, which best suits your requirement. As an added
advantage, some of the Web Store service providers will
integrate your store with a shopping mall or e-marketplace
free of charge. This will instantly expose your web store
to a large targeted prospective customer audience.
Create an online catalog

If you sell only one or couple of products and do not add
products or services often, you don’t require an online
catalog. However, if you have a product line of over 10
products and you constantly add or change products, you
should consider a web store with the facility of an online
product catalog. This feature of a web store service allows
rapid developing and maintaining of you electronic catalog
without spending large sums on creating one by yourself.

Look for a web store service provider who offers wizard or
form base product adding method to the electronic catalog
and use some kind of standard product classification codes.
At later stage, if you choose to sell products through
e-marketplaces, this will allow you to integrate your
products to e-marketplaces and make sales offers with ease.

Choose a payment method

If you are planning to sell ebooks, reports, whitepapers etc.
I would suggest you to consider using clickbank’s marketplace.
That way, you don’t have to worry about getting a credit
card merchant account.

Around 90 percent of all sales transaction occur online are
by credit card payments. To accept credit card payment over
the Internet, you must first have a merchant account. A
merchant account allows a vendor to process credit card
transactions. If you built a web store online with one of
the web store service providers, you will see that they
offer gateways to one or several merchant account providers
and have partnership with them. In general, you get a better
deal with them. However, as charges vary significantly from
one merchant account provider to another, make sure you shop
around before committing yourself to one.

Promote you site

To sell your products through your site, you must draw
traffic. There are number of ways of promoting your site
on the Internet. This includes:

- Search engine submissions

- Adding your site to different online directories

- Opt-in email campaign

- Link exchange

- Banner and link ads

In you effort to promote your site, you should combine as
many offline and online promotional methods you can come
up with. The more traffic you can generate the better chance
you have of selling more products from your Web Store.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present
CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he
has wide experience in Business Consulting, International
Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace
with solutions to start and run online business.
You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,
http://ezine.rusbiz.com, http://www.rusbiz.com

Business processes are the building blocks of an enterprise.
If one of these processes fails to live up to its expectation,
business starts to flounder. How to minimize the risks, get a
better monitoring of the processes and, at the same time, reduce
costs involved? The answer is – business process automation.

Although, automated business processes based on online
technologies can create incredible value to existing business,
many companies are slow to adopt technological innovations and
reap benefits from them. However, lately, things have started
to change! According to a recent poll conducted among mid size
companies shows 52 percent of respondents plan to spend over
a million dollar on business process automation. Large
companies – early adopters of online business
processes – have been immensely profiting from the value
created by process automation. Intel recently announced that
it saved one billion dollar last year alone thanks to online
business process management.

In broader sense, business process management technology
delivers solutions to understand, analyze and simulate business
process models. Companies adopt this technology to streamline
their business operations, lower overhead expenses, reduce
maverick buying, reduce paper-based – mistake
prone – transactions and get better control. The ultimate goal
is to make the corporation a fully process-managed enterprise,
transformed through strategy, design, realization and actual
operations.

Companies require streamlining their business processes to help
solve various crucial but specific problems, such as:

• An electronic supplier, in order to stay competitive, requires reducing order fulfillment cost aggressively.
• A merchant needs to reduce shipping time by better monitoring his inbound shipping.
• A manufacturer needs to cut production cost by reducing manufacturing time of a key product.
• A bank needs to develop and market a financial product faster than its competitors.
• A large distributor needs to consolidate buyers and suppliers to bring efficiency to its business.

Although, business processes are wide in range; and there are
many complex issues that require meticulous work, automation
of some basic processes may bring notable result for virtually
any company. These processes include supply chain, procurement,
logistics, inventory control, etc. By adopting an online
business to business exchange companies can streamline most
of these business processes bringing added value to their
operations.

A B2B exchange is a unified online platform, where buyers and
sellers login to communicate, collaborate and make business
transactions. A private B2B exchange, mostly, consolidates
suppliers and buyers of a specific company, which owns and
operates the exchange.

There are two ways of integrating B2B exchange to automate
business processes. A company can participate in existing B2B
exchange or create its own private exchange.

While for small companies, it is more viable to participate in
a major B2B exchange that has required components, larger
companies should consider creating their own B2B exchange.

The profits companies can reap from joining an existing B2B
exchange or creating their own private one could be enormous.

Customer Base Development

A supplier, once registers with a B2B exchange, gets immediate
access to a large community of prospective buyers of his
products or services.

Increase Revenue from Existing Customers

Business process automation allows companies develop products
faster, buyers get faster and easier access to product
information, receive quicker response to their requests,
get better customer support and may buy products online.
These turn into more sales.

Add Profit from Value Added Services

Once the exchange is set as primary sales channel, available
free resources can be used to create more value added services
for clients. Some of the services that the exchange may offer
also can be used to generate more value.

Reduce Order Processing Cost

The supply chain solutions of a B2B exchange may allow sellers
to reduce order processing cost significantly. Studies show
that cost of processing a purchase order can be reduced from
US$ 70 down to US$ 6 only.

Sales and support costs

By automating sales and customer support processes companies
can reduce over head costs over 25-30% easily.

Inventory keeping costs

Clearer visibility and forecasting ability allow companies
considerably reduce inventory keeping costs.

Since an existing B2B exchange may not have all the necessary
features and functions, a good option is to build a private
exchange based on one’s own specific business process
automation need. This exchange, at its minimum, should be able
to cover major portion of supply chain and inventory control.

The following elements should be integrated to create substantial value to a private B2B exchange:

Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is the core solution of an exchange
and can deliver great values to existing systems.
Implementation of this solution will help achieve incredibly
high return on investment. Business process automation in this
component of the exchange includes both supplier and buyer-side
quotation, requisition, purchase order and invoice.

Marketplace

This is the venue where the exchange owner company will post
their products for sale. A shopping cart should be integrated
to the electronic marketplace in order to automate the buying
process. The offered-for-sale products will be directly
related to inventory control management component of the
exchange.

Auction

Electronic auction system can use both English and Dutch
auction methods. For convenience the auction component can
be integrated to the electronic marketplace.
Online auction helps liquidate surplus goods easily.

Reverse Auction

This solution allows automate electronic procurement, where
suppliers compete for a business deal real time online.

Members Storefront

The participants of the Private Exchange – both buyers and
sellers of the exchange owner company get a Storefront that
reflects profile of the company, their products and other
information.

Forum

A Forum or Discussion Board is an organized, on-line interactive
message board where participants conduct discussion on a set of
topics by posting questions, comments and responses.

Directory of Companies

This is a listing of all registered participants – buyers and
sellers of the exchange owner company – either by business
category or by alphabetical order. An advanced search engine
tool can be incorporated in order to find a company based on
data provided.

E-catalog

E-catalog is a hierarchy of product and service categories.
All products and services handled by the exchange owner company
should be consolidated in the catalog.

Private B2B exchange is a powerful concept, which engulfs a
fairly big portion of business processes requiring automation.
This is more like a business ecosystem that has an ability to
change the way companies think and do business and create
tremendous value to their owners.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present
CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he
has wide experience in Business Consulting, International
Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace
with solutions to start and run online business.
You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,
http://ezine.rusbiz.com/newsletters/newsletter31.htm

Increase Company Productivity

After years of hard work, finally your business started to pick
up. You are selling more products then ever! You have lined up a
good number of suppliers and buyers. Things have never been better
than now. Except one thing! With rising sales your overhead and
supply chain expenses are also sky-rocketing. Your profit margin
is no longer the same as it used to be! You feel that you are in
a limbo! How to increase productivity? How to cut costs without
giving up sales?

Sounds familiar to you? Well, your company is not alone! According
to IDC, a research firm, while interviewed, overwhelming majority
of the company executives claimed that their biggest concern is
declining profit margins.

Companies, in order to stay competitive, must find solutions to
increase efficiency in business operations and control costs. Is
there a solution to this ubiquitous problem?

Remember Dorothy from the children classic "Wizard of the Oz"?
She had to go through numerous obstacles in her quest to find a
way to get back to Kansas, her home. Only to find out that the
silver shoes that she was wearing from the very first day since
the cyclone brought her to the Land of Oz could have taken her
back home, all she had to do was to knock the heels together
three times and command the shoes to carry her wherever she
wished to go.

Similar to this story, solutions to these corporate problems are
widely available right under your nose, only you as a company
executive have to overcome the fear of new technologies and adopt
them to your own good.

B2B exchanges or emarketplaces are capable of solving many key
problems that corporations are facing today. Emarketplaces can
provide immense opportunities to automate supply chain process,
increase operational efficiency, reduce overhead costs and expand
market at a minimal cost.

Using emarketplace effectively
Two primary factors of company productivity are Revenue Increase
and Cost Cutting. Both are achievable if a company seriously
decides to incorporate emarketplace features in all aspects of
business operations. That means if as a company you want to reap
all the benefits of emarketplaces, you have to commit yourself
seriously.

Become a member
Once you find an emarketplace that suits your requirement, the
first thing what you have to do is to register and become a member.

Most emarketplaces have different membership packages. Although,
to check out the emarketplace – whether it is viable for your
business or not – you might start with the free membership package,
but once you are satisfied with your selection, to use the
emarketplace to your advantage you should choose the package with
most features and functions.

Integrate your products to e-catalog
If you are a supplier, this is a very important step to take.
Unless you have thousands of products to sell, this should not
be a difficult task. All emarketplaces use either a form or
wizard-based, not-so-complex and user-friendly product adding
tool. Since e-catalogs that emarketplaces use are industry
standard, once you aggregated you products, same information you
will be able to use in other e-catalogs, emarketplaces and even
in your own website.

Apart from your own buyers other prospective customers from the
emarketplace community are able to view your products in the
e-catalog, which in turn will bring you new contacts and sales.

Create products for sale offers
You should create sales offer of your primary products that you
carry most of the time and post them on the emarketplace. Many
emarketplaces have options to sell products with different
procedures. You can make offer to sell access inventories through
dynamic market, also called auction, you can make hot offers
with time limit, etc.
This is an extra sales channel in the beginning, which might grow
into your primary one!

Involve your buyers and sellers
If you would like to use an emarketplace most effectively, you
have to get your suppliers and buyers on board too. Supply chain
management solution that usually comes with an emarketplace
allows you to reduce operational costs significantly.

- Encourage your buyers to send request for quote for a product through the inbuilt system of the emarketplace.

- Make strict rules within your company to send all quotes exclusively through emarketplace.

- Ask your buyers to send Purchase Orders to your company via emarketplace.

- Bill all your clients using invoicing system of the emarketplace.

- Manage shipping and handling though emarketplaces.

- Convince your suppliers to use the same emarketplace so that even as a buyer you can get the benefits of a B2B exchange.

Complete adoption of an emarketplace will help a company gain
numerous benefits. The following figures taken from various
research notes emphasize the importance of e-marketplace in
today’s business world.

- Thanks to emarketplace, companies can reduce purchase order processing cost from US $75 to less than US $10.

- By automating sales and customer support processes companies can lower overhead costs up to 25 – 30% easily.

- Companies also can reduce more than five percent of their maintenance, repair and operation by incorporating e-business solutions, which are integral parts of any emarketplace.

- Business process automation using B2B emarketplace helps companies decreasing of document errors from 20 percent to less than one percent.

B2B Emarketplace solutions are great opportunities

The famous inventor Thomas Edison once told, "Opportunity is
missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work."

Company executives are by no means afraid of hard work, but
unfortunately many of them have colossal fear of high
technology and because of this reluctant to explore new
Internet-based technologies to their advantage. If you are
one of them, be assured that knowledge required to adopt
emarketplace to your business and manage it properly is easy
to learn and implement.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present
CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he
has wide experience in Business Consulting, International
Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace
with solutions to start and run online business.
You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,
http://ezine.rusbiz.com, http://www.rusbiz.com

Selecting the right emarketplace

Although, IT spending has been staying flat for the last several
years, corporate spending in e-business is gaining significant
ground and at present surpasses 20 percent of overall IT budget.

This means, more and more businesses are undertaking ecommerce
initiatives, and as a result increasing sales, streamlining
business processes and dramatically boosting productivity.

Most experts agree that average business, which is slow in
adopting e-business applications, risks loosing its competitive
edge to their more progressive rivals.

Emarketplaces provide with a great opportunity for small to
medium size companies to test online business for a minimal risk.
This is due to the factor that the e-business applications that
come along with an emarketplace membership package are
prohibitively expensive to develop in-house by most companies,
and require large professional workforce to operate. As an
example: product content development with required attributes,
suitable for e-business, itself might feel like a daunting task
for most offline companies.

So, as a company, what should be your first step in starting
e-business through emarketplaces?

Naturally, out of hundreds of emarketplaces available today,
you have to find one that matches all your requirements.
Choosing right kind of emarketplace

In best case scenario, if yours is a large enough company,
you should build your private emarketplace with all the
necessary features specific to your business. The potential
of having your own emarketplace is amazing!

- Ecommerce will add value to your existing business transactions

- Your present suppliers will be able to post most updated information on their products via e-catalog and their storefront

- You can build community from your present buyers and supplier, or invite members on the Internet

- Real time marketplace will allow you to take quick buying and selling decision

- Both buyers and sellers can contact you through Instant Messaging System

- Your entire supply chain process can be managed from one place

- You can issue real time purchase tenders with either limited access only to your community members or open to public

- Sell your stock lots through online auction

- Brand you emarketplace and establish your company as a serious online player within your Industry

However, as I mentioned earlier, if you are not a very big company,
you will probably be better off with a membership in an established
emarketplace.

If you are a manufacturer, wholesaler or a buyer of certain
industry specific products or services, your best choice would be
a vertical emarketplace that caters specially your industry. For
example: if you buy or sell fish, you should look for an emarketplace
that deals with this product only. Another thing that you should
keep in mind is how geographically limited your business is. If you
buy and sell fish within the locality of your state or region, if
available, get an emarketplace that works in your region.

Totally different story, if you carry large number of products
from different industries; for you a horizontal marketplace that
cater a range of industries is a better choice. If you are an
international trader involved in import or export, you should select
a global emarketplace, which has members from the countries you
deal with.

Features that are must

A good emarketplace amasses various features in order to facilitate
smooth transactions of business deals. However, there are some key
attributes that are absolutely necessary for any emarketplace to
become successful; and as a prospective member you should look for
these features and characteristics while choosing an emarketplace
for yourself.

Product catalog based on an industry-standard classification system
While it might not look so important from the surface; to have
accurate, well-defined and timely-updated product content is
extremely crucial for any online business. Since you have to
integrate your product catalog to the aggregated electronic catalog
of the emarketplace, which could be a very complex task, you should
make sure that the classification system that they have is widely
used online; and if necessary you can use same product content with
other emarketplaces or e-procurement applications.

The best option, as I believe, is based on The Universal Standard
Products and Services Classification (UNSPSC), which is a global
coding system that classifies products and services. This
categorization scheme covers the broadest collection of industries
and commodities available today, and designed to facilitate
e-commerce transactions by providing geography-independent common
nomenclature system.

Product search capability within the marketplace and e-catalog
Members of the emarketplace should be able to locate any product
or service, whether in the auctions, marketplaces, or in the catalog
with ease. Advanced search function should allow finding required
items using precise query.

Supply chain process, i.e. request for quote, quotation, purchase
order, billing system, etc.
Efficient supply chain management is the number one strategic priority
for many businesses. In 2001, Cisco System alone had to write off
US $2.5 billion in excess inventories due to poor management of its
numerous outsourcing contractors.
E-marketplaces can help streamlining your supply chain process if
the required features are embedded in their system.

Directory of members
Usually most emarketplaces incorporate a searchable directory of
their members. The members get an added opportunity of creating
new business relations and increasing sales thanks to this feature.

Product content adding and editing interface
In order to make product content adding and maintaining easier
for sellers, the marketplace must have an uncomplicated tool.
The tool could be a wizard-based combination of simple forms.
To integrate larger catalogs speedily and efficiently the
emarketplace should have XML based interface.

Ability to promote products and services
The process of posting an offer for sale of a product or a service
on the marketplace should be simple and easy but sophisticated
enough to create dynamic offer, offer with time limit, variable
pricing based on quantity, etc.

Apart from the above mentioned functionalities that facilitate
conducting e-business, other key characteristics of a quality
e-marketplace should include:

Simplicity – An emarketplace should be easy to learn and use.
Large Community – The quantity of members should be big enough,
so that new participants can expand their business.
Flexibility – Emarketplace functions should be flexible enough
to modify or add with new features when necessary.
Neutrality – The emarketplace should be an unbiased venue for
both sellers and buyers. No member should have any privilege
at the expense of others. Providing an open and transparent
market for all the participants is an important constituent
of the value proposition of an emarketplace.

Cost of doing business through e-marketplace

In general, thanks to the large member base, e-marketplaces
charge a reasonable subscription fee if you would like to
participate in it. Many emarketplaces also charge a nominal
fee for each trade made using their facilities. Other costs
involved, that you should consider, are internal workforce
needed to handle business via emarketplace, catalog
integration and maintaining, etc. In any case, the cost of
doing business through emarketplaces is negligible for most
businesses compare to the gains they make.

Get your partners involved

If you just build a corporate website and don’t spend
required time and money to promote, it won’t bring any
business. Same goes for emarketplace! Mere participation in
an emarketplace also will not produce any significant
benefit if you don’t convince your existing buyers and
suppliers to work with you through your chosen emarketplace.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO
of Rusbiz.com. He has Ph. D. degree in Information Technology.
Dr. Kabir has over 12 years of experience in International Trade
and has worked as an advisor to several government projects.
You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,
http://ezine.rusbiz.com, http://www.rusbiz.com

If you are a small to medium size company and selling or
planning to sell products and services over the Net and still
did not try out emarketplaces, you are simply loosing a great
opportunity!

Research firm eMarketer predicts that worldwide B2B ecommerce
revenues will surpass US$ 1.4 trillion by the end of 2003. In
the United States alone revenues will total US$ 721 billion.
By 2004, the US B2B ecommerce revenues are expected to reach
US$ 1.01 trillion and studies show that a significant portion
of these transactions will be conducted through emarketplaces.

What is an Emarketplace?

In a broader sense, business to business emarketplace is an
online platform where buyers and sellers come to communicate,
collaborate and make business transactions. Emarketplace caters
a large number of participant companies as a community. The main
objective of an emarketplace is to create a venue, filled with
features that allow members to efficiently conduct significant
portion of business processes on the Net. Emarketplaces are also
known as B2B exchanges.

Types of Emarketplaces

There are varieties of emarketplaces available on the Internet
to suit your company’s specific need.

Public:

These emarketplaces are open to all companies. Virtually,
anybody can become a member and conduct business through these
marketplaces.

Private:

Membership is restricted and owners of the marketplace
decide according to which criteria they will select participants.
For example: a large trading company can have its own
emarketplace limited to its buyers or suppliers only.

Horizontal:

If the emarketplace works with a large numbers of
products and services from different industries, it is called a
horizontal marketplace.

Vertical:

Industry specific emarketplaces are called vertical
markets. An emarketplace, working solely with suppliers and
buyers of cars is an example of this kind of marketplace.

Can your company benefit from an Emarketplace?

Whether you are primarily a buyer or a supplier, participation
in emarketplace can generate enormous benefits to your company
- both in cost savings and productivity increase.

Benefits that you can have as a buyer

Automate the purchasing procedure

Emarketplaces allow you to send request for quotes to a
prospective supplier, receive quotes, send purchase orders and
receive invoices within the marketplace system. You can
virtually consolidate all your procurement processes in one
single place. This process of automation brings significant
efficiency to you and saves your transaction processing cost.
According to Aberdeen Group, a research company, thanks to B2B
procurement systems, businesses can reduce these processing
costs up to 70%.

Comparison shopping at its best

Since you can see all the suppliers of a particular product,
that you are planning to buy, in one place, it is easy for you
to see which one among the suppliers suits you best in terms
of quality, delivery time, geographical location, costs etc.

Reduce sourcing time cycle

Most emarketplaces allow you to select multiple offers from
different suppliers and create purchase orders in one shot and
send. Since you handle all your procurement related correspondence
from a consolidated working page, you can see right away answers
to requests for quote, invoices, etc. This helps you react
instantly and reduce you time in document processing.

Community participation

You can receive valuable feedbacks from other fellow buyers,
receive industry-related information, build new partnerships and
use the networking ability of a community.

Real time access to current product information

Current information of a product is vital for an accurate buying
decision. 24 hours access to supplier’s catalog helps you getting
most up-to-date information any time you need it.

Control rogue spending

Consolidated and automated procurement and approval method stops
maverick buying in a company.

Benefit that you can have as a seller

New sales channel

By becoming a member of an emarketplace, you open a low cost,
highly functional and easy-to-use sales channel for your company.
You expose your company to a new targeted audience that otherwise
would have been untapped to you.

Low customer acquisition cost

Your mere presence in the emarketplace might bring you new
customers. Since the buyers come to emarketplace themselves your
cost of getting customers through this channel is relatively low
in comparison to other traditional channels.

Improve customer service

Ability to have constant interaction through the emarketplace
allows you to serve your customers better. You can track the whole
ordering process from payment to delivery and bring greater
efficiency in customer service.

Efficient information sharing method

When needed, you can instantly update your catalog and inform your
customers about changes. Whether you are launching a new product
or having a web seminar, through emarketplace you can share the
information more efficiently.

Reduce supply chain cost

According to eMarketer, automated supply chain process through
emarketplaces can reduce your overhead costs 20% to 40%.

You may ask, if participation in an emarketplace is so beneficial,
why companies are not flocking to emarketplaces.

The slower adoption can be blamed on various inadvertent factors:

• Many companies had fall short to generate significant sales from their own websites and look at emarketplaces with a dose of skepticism. But as studies show ecommerce endeavors fail, mainly, due to lack of proper planning and marketing, as many site managers take the attitude that build-it-and-they-will-come.
• Many conservative suppliers claim that their business depends on close relationship with local buyers. In reality, you can also get access to local untapped market through emarketplaces. Another aspect – you can bring efficiency to your business by co-adopting an emarketplace along with
  your buyers.
• Many elderly executives are not very tech-savvy and afraid of adopting new technologies considering them too complex. In reality, e-business is virtual implementation of real life business processes and not very difficult to embrace.
• Fear of price shopping by buyers is another factor, why suppliers are reluctant to use emarketplaces. The ability of emarketplace to emphasize all characteristics of the product in product content and demonstrate buyer-specific pricing should eliminate this fear.
• Many, mistakenly, consider that participation cost in emarketplace is very high and will hurt their bottom line. The expenses related to emarketplace membership are, usually, a mere fraction of what you can save from the use of its different features.

What to look in an Emarketplace?

As an online venue, where participants expect to conduct substantial
part of their business processes, emarketplace has a large range of
useful features:

• Product catalog based on an industry-standard classification system
• Product search capability within the marketplace and e-catalog
• Buyers and sellers search capabilities
• Supply chain process, i.e. request for quote, quotation, purchase order, billing system, etc.
• Directory of members
• Shipment tracking
• Simple system of adding and editing products
• Simple offer posting system
• Ability to promote products with special offers, sales, and discount

Apart from these, some emarketplaces boast other interesting features
like auction and reverse auction, new product listing notification,
business forum, XML interface, Internal messaging system. Naturally,
implementation of these features may vary significantly emarketplace
to emarketplace.

Where to look for Emarketplace?

The best place to find an extensive list of emarketplaces is the B2B
directory site: http://www.bocat.com.

The open directory project DMOZ has a good list of emarketplaces.
However, not all listings in both of these places are, in reality,
emarketplaces. Some of them are simple trade boards. This list is
located at http://dmoz.org/Business/E-Commerce/Marketplaces/

Yahoo! directory is not organized well enough to locate emarketplaces.
They are scattered under the subcategories: Vertical marketplace
builders, Trade directories and even Trade.

Forbes magazine has a quality list of many B2B companies including some
emarketplaces. You will find the list at:
http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2b/main.jhtml

To be continued in next issue: Selecting the right Emarketplace.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present
CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he
has wide experience in Business Consulting, International
Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace
with solutions to start and run online business.
You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com,
http://ezine.rusbiz.com, http://www.rusbiz.com

When most people think of a retirement gift, they think of a watch. It’s the tried and true gift that companies give employees to say thanks for all the years of hard work. It’s a great gift on behalf of the company but if you’re the lucky individual enlisted with planning the retirement party, you’re probably in need of a personalized gift on behalf of everyone at the office.

The perfect gift would probably be an affordable, personalized, lifetime keepsake from everyone attending the farewell party and yet something that would make a beautiful presentation to wish the retiree well on the next stage of their life. Is there such a gift with all these qualities and still be original?

Well, there is and it’s called a signature frame and it is able to encompass all of these great qualities by displaying pictures of the retiree surrounded with signatures and/or messages from friends and fellow co-workers. The signed frame, complimented with pictures and an engraved plaque will make a memorable gift at a retirement party.

Many signature frames are sold as kits and include everything from the pen for signing the mat board to the mounting system to quickly and easily add special photographs.

To make a fun presentation at the party, fill the frame with older photos of the person during their time at work and also personal photos of them throughout their life such as their hobbies, old graduation pictures etc. That way, when friends and colleagues sign the frame they will have a chance to reminisce about their friend while having fun looking at how much they have changed over the years. Be sure to take some new photographs at the party so they can later be added to the frame as a way to remember this final farewell memory.

This simple, fun retirement gift will provide years of happy memories for the retiree by displaying a lifetime of work memories while at the same time providing a personal memento from fellow employees and friends.

Shar Calder is the owner of First Class Framing a picture framing company providing ready-made framing solutions to display important life celebrations. Special collage frames allow consumers to display their memories quickly and easily.
http://www.firstclassframing.com

I’m a plain man who uses plain thinking in devising strategies for making money online.

I do not spend obscene mounts of money attending high ticket web conferences nor do I rush to purchase the latest collection of web casts at outrageous prices.

What I do instead is dissect what the high fliers do; pick the best; discard the rest; and add my own innovations.

In the process I create new dimensions to the standard online marketing techniques everyone else employs – and sometimes with spectacular results.

Search engine optimization for instance?

Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts at developing that great niche idea will be in vain.

Net result: you will lose out and you won’t be making any money online.

Target the right keywords and your website visitor traffic will rocket.

Targeting the correct keywords at the outset resulted in 839 top rankings for the 18 pages of my website http://www.writing-for-profit.com within days of being spidered by the major search engines.

Here are six of the keyword pairings and initial rankings obtained on the very first day that listings were published – all of three years ago.

1. Writing for profit – 6 x #1 Spots

2. Writing – 18 x #2 Spots

3. Extra income idea – 6 x #3 Spots

4. Extra income opportunity – 5 x #4 Spots

5. Residual income opportunity – 7 x #5 Spots

6. Residual income stream – 5 x #6 Spots

Now here’s kicker ?

Check out this same website right now and you will find that for the first keyword phrase "writing for profit" it still Ranks at No.1 on Google, Yahoo!, Fast, Inkomi, Jeeves, Altavista, AOL, Teoma, All The Web, MSN – three years later?

Attracting pre-conditioned traffic for instance?

Over the years I have devised a unique twist to a basic online marketing strategy used by the majority of enlightened Net workers.

I’ve added an innovative dimension that attracts highly targeted, pre-conditioned traffic in droves.

It has nothing to do with search engine positioning, links, newsletters, list building, smart pages, etc, nor have I re-invented the wheel.

It has all to do with original, out-of-the box thinking.

Here’s the final for instance?

A secret strategy you won’t find anywhere else, search as you may.

It empowers me to create and host 1000s of websites for one single very low monthly fee – and rocket my online sales in the process.

I won’t even give you a hint here on how it’s done because it is not for public consumption.

I call my collection of innovations the ‘Plain Man’s Guide to Making Money Online’.

It won’t deliver instant riches but it will teach you how to thrive in 05 making money online?

Jim Green is an entrepreneur and bestselling author with an ever-growing string of niche non-fiction titles to his credit. You can download a copy of the ‘Plain Man’s Guide to Making Money Online’ at this website
http://makingmoneyonline-xl.com

Open Source applications can bring unique value to business owners. Since the base application development costs of open source applications is free, small and medium business owners are able to leverage previously unobtainable technolgies against their sales objectives, operational costs and customer satisfaction levels.

Most small and medium businesses cannot afford the typical IT infrastructure model – nor does it make sense even if it is within their budget. Consider the following expenses:

• Hardware Infrastructure (Servers, Routers, etc)

• Bandwith

• Software licenses

• Software maintenance

• IT Staff

The creation, countinued adoption and proliferation of Linux (Open Source Operating System) in many server installations across the world has changed the way businesses run their IT operations. Although Linux is not yet a viable technolgy in the workstation model, it most certainly has gained a large market share in the server/application world. Companies adopting Linux into their server environment have realized the decreased costs, increased efficiency and increased security associated with this platform. The secret is now out and organizations are jumping the Microsoft ship at an ever increasing rate. This trend has not been lost on the major players in the IT industry, as IBM and Novell have been furiously waving the Linux banner and adopting the Linux penguin into all their marketing efforts over the last 12-24 months.

What does this mean to the typical Small & Medium Business Owner?

Since the proliferation of Linux, many applications have been developed by programmers from around the world to run on this platform. Pretty much any application a business could require, no matter how specialized, can now be found in the Open Source community. By choosing an ASP (Application Service Provider) provider that has experience with these applications, and the necessary infrastructure to host, manage & support these applications for you, a business owner can now leverage core business applications at a fraction of traditional, “expected” costs. Although IBM has never been able to capitalize or deliver on their now famous marketing slogan “Pay like a little guy, Play like a big guy” – Savy business owners are learning how to accomplish this, even if it isn’t by calling IBM.

Enterprise level applications such as eCommerce, CRM, Content Management and Portals are now available for 100′s of dollars setup, not 10′s of thousands or 100′s of thousands dollars. Combine this with low, fixed operational monthly hosting and support fees – effectively eliminating infrastructure, IT staff, software and bandwith expenses – and the value statement becomes VERY strong for the typical business owners.

Other advantages with Open Source applications:

• Real time updates and upgrades. No more waiting for your vendor to release the next version before bugs &/or security holes are patched.

• Once a bug is identified and validated, the Open Source community is quick to release a fix.

• Open source means open and available code – unlike various proprietary systems, where source code is not available – application integration is now affordable and possible, even for small business.

www.cartika.ca

Cartika IT Solutions for Business

About The Author

Cartika IT Solutions for Business – H-Sphere Web Hosting, XRMS CRM, SugarCRM, Zen Cart eCommerce, Mambo Content Management.