If a business survived in a protected niche of opaque pricing, newfound transparency will expose that business to unprecedented competition. Companies that relied upon their sales and marketing staffs to dominate in a product niche could find themselves losing to competitors that have excellent operations and high quality, but poor marketing and sales skills. The online auction process itself is not simple, however.
Companies doing the buying all have different needs.
One outgrowth of this complexity is that for most purchases, different buying organizations would have different objectives and would therefore tend to use separate customized auctions rather than one common auction. It is difficult to get many buyers to agree in advance on a particular set of objectives. Rarely do auctions lead to the end of long-term relationships with suppliers. With commodities, the prices do drop and the frequency of purchases increases. Once the auction is over, production parts are approved and tooling is installed, the working relationship can run for years.