Effects of B2B e-marketplaces to the marketing strategies of companies

ABSTRACT The increasing popularity of the Internet as a business vehicle is due to its current size and future growth prospects, its attractive caracteristics, its availability to facilitate the global sharing of information and resources, and its potential to provide an efficient channel for advertising, marketing, and even direct distribution of certain goods and information services. As the Internet presents a fundamentally different environment for marketing activities than traditional media, conventional marketing activities are being transformed, because they are often difficult to implement in their present form. The objective of this study is to provide guidelines for marketing activities in the B2B e- marketplaces. The aim is to find out preferences on the e-marketplaces usage, to determine the major reasons that motivate companies to make commerce on e-marketplaces and effects of advertising and promotions on theseniarketplaces. The study includes the literature review on the effects of B2B e-marketplaces on marketing strategies. The survey consists of 30 companies that use B2B e-marketplaces for commercial purposes. B2B e-marketplaces are very new concepts for Turkish companies. E-marketplaces were started to be constructed at the very begining of the 2000' s. Due to the late entry of e- marketplaces, Turkish firms are not very familiar to the marketing activities and strategies that take place on this medium. However this survey shows that Turkish firms pay attention to the e-marketplaces and feel likely to join these new markets to purchase or sell products. Therefore, e-marketplaces seem to have a promising future as a new marketing medium. Vll