Prime sites

SME IT/ E-COMMERCE

Today, you just cannot afford to ignore emarketplaces.

Is there value in e-commerce? Given that it's an extension of offline commerce, there should be. Best of all, a company need not design its own website with a backend (database, et al) that will enable e-commerce. It can be done through emarketplaces.

The mission of eMarket services is to make it easier for companies, particularly SMEs to use electronic marketplaces for international (and domestic) business plus networking.

On an e-marketplace, several companies can meet on a common platform to do business. On some e-marketplaces companies find new customers or suppliers. Others can make the order process between buyers and seller more efficient.

eMarketplaces can be found on the Internet for SMEs, covering a wide range of product and service offerings. So it's definitely worth your while to search on the Internet, or to have a look in trade journals, to see what it is about. Joining one or more eMarketplaces can be a quick route to getting your business exposed to new buyers for a relatively small cost.

Let's take some examples closer home too. Take the URL: http://www.yellowpages.co.in/ Herein, small companies can list for free. All you have to do is to fill in details about your business. You will soon receive a letter from them asking you to confirm the details. After which, the information about your business will be uploaded "� free of charge.

Of course, for a detailed site of your own with ecommerce capabilities (to sell and buy products online), you will have to shell out some money. You can search for companies by city, business heading, product/service or name (company or person).

Alternatively, you can also go to http://www.indianexporters.com/which also, among other things, gives you trade leads. SeekandSource.com (a Sify venture) is another electronic marketplace for facilitating buying and selling industrial goods and services at market-driven prices.

As a buyer, you can search for vendors who can supply the items you need, find all relevant information on product specifications and price. You can then send an enquiry with your requirement "� all online. If you are a seller, you can list your products, their specification and create your own Virtual office.

The SeekandSource.com community features over 40,000 small and medium Indian businesses comprising manufacturers, suppliers, exporters and service providers across 89 vertical industry segments thereby making it one of the largest online directory of Indian businesses.

Buyers can locate and source from Indian suppliers and exporters across manufacturing, engineering, automotive, electrical, machinery and equipment, chemicals, plastics, computer hardware and IT products among others.

Satyamplastics.com, on the other hand, claims to be South East Asia's number one online marketplace for the plastics industry. It features over 15,000 businesses buying and selling plastics raw materials, intermediates and finished products apart from equipment and machinery for plastics processing.

However, there are a few caveats. First find out things like: Who runs it; Does it have credibility within the industry? Is this really where you will find customers? Does it offer the kind of interaction your customers want?

Is there a demonstrable return on investment? How well can you promote your brand within the e-marketplace? Can you easily control your own inventory for single and multiple item updates? How complex is the integration between your IT systems and those of the e-marketplace? Is the level of integration appropriate for your business? And, finally, is the e-marketplace secure for you and your customers?