The traditional
intermediaries
j
|
|
There is a paradox in the electronic intermediaries in the surplus assets industry. As we saw when we analyzed the electronic intermediaries, there are lots of intermediaries and maybe too much for the size of the market. Even if in theory, they can target the worldwide market, the actual buyers and sellers come from North America essentially.
Potential customers of these sites from outside North America are certainly
unwilling to use them.
We can find different reasons to explain this behavior:
- The distance, you prefer make a deal with someone in the same country
in case of problem
- The security of payment if there are two different currency
- The fluctuation of the exchange rate during the time of the auction
- The cost of the transportation
- Problem of compatibility or regulation, you can be not able to use
some item in a country because of a different regulation between countries
- They can have some restriction to import some items or some buyers
do not want to deals with the entry formalities which can be expensive
and time consuming
All these reasons explain why it is necessary to have a web site, which focus on a specific country or on a certain geographic. For instance, we can have some sites focus on the European Union or the Japan.
Actually, I have found only one vertical site in Germany for machinery
tool which is: www.ebay-pro.de. This
site is made by ebay which wants to test a B to B auction site in Europe.
Because this site is a success, ebay will launch a web site for most of
the european countries. We can find the list on www.ebay-pro.com.
Nonetheless, here is a good international opportunity. The market is very
broad, there is one currency, the goods can move freely inside the EU,
and most of the problems cited above don’t exist.
