Special Section: Electronic Markets and Supply Chains

Business-to-business (B2B) e-marketplaces — new entities spawned by the Internet — provide a broad range of supply chain management services, including digital catalogues, online auctions, logistics services, supply chain planning and even design collaboration. Although the majority of the e-marketplaces launched in the past decade have failed, hundreds have survived and in some cases thrived (Day et al. 2003; Laseter and Capers 2002). This paper reports a study of a sample of B2B e-marketplace survivors to identify the attributes linked to financial performance. The paper presents a conceptual framework for B2B e-marketplace success drawing upon the strategic management literature of Industrial Organization Economics, the Resource-Based View and Competitive Heterogeneity. The conceptual model is tested through regression analyses of revenue and profitability drivers captured in a survey of 273 surviving e-marketplaces. While by no means resolving the varying viewpoints regarding the strategic indicators of financial success, the results do provide insights into successful strategies for B2B e-marketplaces. In this study the variables with special significance relate to ownership, funding levels, speed, continuity, and to some extent the scope of service offering.