New Australian Online b2b Research Released

New research from ACNielsen.consult has revealed that, despite the relative infancy of the Australian Internet b2b marketplace, total trade volume for online exchanges amounted to A$120m for 2000/2001. Detailed findings have just been released in its latest iB2B report.

It is believed that this new report is unique in exploring the Australian industry's current market size and landscape. It also contains analysis of the key issues within the industry in terms of readiness, functionality available to market participants, technology and marketing issues and strategies.

The survey itself was conducted in April and May of this year. The research found that far more companies are buying rather than selling in Australian e-markets. The findings indicate that there were approximately 6,000 active buyers versus 3,800 active sellers and 1,400 companies that bought and sold in the last year. The survey also found that smaller and medium sized (SMEs) enterprises rather than large companies buy and sell in e-markets, although sellers tend to be larger than buyers.

The other key findings of the survey include:

• Neutral/independent e-markets far outnumber buy-side and sell-side e-markets, despite industry concerns about the sustainability of the business model.
  
• There are more vertical industry-specific e-markets (55) compared to horizontal (17) e-markets.
  
• Australian buyers and sellers use Australian e-markets. Australian e-markets don't process many transactions from overseas participants.

Mr. Ramin Marzbani, CEO of ACNielsen.consult commented that, "iB2B is the environment where businesses communicate, collaborate and conduct business over the Internet, with e-markets the intermediaries where companies register as sellers and buyers to trade goods and services. It's still early days for the iB2B e-market in Australia, with around 70% of the iB2B e-markets participating in the survey starting up less than a year ago. We identified 72 Australian e-markets - a much lower number than we originally expected based on press releases and other publications - but the survey found estimated total trade volume already amounting to around A$120 million across those. The Australian e-market can look to the US experience to improve its offering. Currently, valued added services are unsatisfactory on Australian e-markets - the US experience indicates services that go beyond simple transaction processing are key to success, along with more intense marketing to reach as-yet unregistered companies, or those that don't yet actively trade."

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

Register (free) for Daily Research News

Simple printable version of this article

Email this article to a friend