Mall2000 – a B2B e-Marketplace Serving e-Commerce Evolution trough Standardization and Profitability

Abstract

This paper introduces the concepts of e-commerce, e-business, and e-marketplaces. It follows the evolution of e-commerce and the transformation of e-business models it causes. The paper presents the Mall 2000 portal in the light of the concepts introduced and considers using two internationally accepted trade standards as a basis of integration of data formats of suppliers’ and buyers’ catalogues in the portal. The article briefly describes the functionality of the portal and compares it to similar, currently active portals. Are such portals still vital? What features should an e-marketplace possess to survive in the third phase of e-commerce evolution, in which the question is how to increase profitability? The paper proves that separating buyers form sellers in an e-marketplace gives an opportunity for the portal owner to generate more revenue, and hence, to increase profitability