Suppliers plan their own e-commerce

If a critical mass of packagers begin to actually purchase packaging machinery and materials via the Web, will they use packaging-specific e-marketplaces, industry-specific e-marketplaces or the suppliers’ sites themselves?

Feb 28th, 2001

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Until a few months ago, conventional wisdom held that packaging-specific e-marketplaces would dominate business-to-business e-commerce. Then the bottom fell out of the stock market, and packaging-specific e-marketplaces started going out of business. Now, according to an e-commerce intentions survey on Packworld.com, nearly one-half (49%) of 263 package suppliers voted their own Web sites as the most likely sources for end-user purchases (see chart). On the surface, the responses may sound self-serving, but the story behind the numbers is that e-commerce isn’t as prevelant on “pure-play” e-marketplace sites as it is on the “click-and-brick” sites. This is similar to what’s happening in the business-to-consumer arena. For more information, see www.packworld.com/go/esurvey. (DN)

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