On the other hand, the Internet for business markets mostly enhances what the entire business market wants. The B2B buyers are far less price conscious than consumer buyers and often use price as the last metric when deciding on a purchase. The Internet allows businesses to find multiple sellers, compare information about the products, reach out to the buyers, engage the buyers in conversation and then pursue that conversation either online for the transaction or offline, for a lot of transactions. What is really amazing about the B2B market is that there is so much more robust a texture to it than the B2C market. There are small companies, medium sized companies and large companies.
Large companies have the issues of what the Internet can mean to how they sell things.
Medium sized companies see the Internet as an incredible opportunity to reach up and get bigger companies as customers. Small companies see the Internet as a way to truly level the playing field, in how they get their products out to market and in some cases how they buy products and source products themselves, at prices that are more appealing. Sort of the wrapping and the bow on top of everything is the idea that B2B markets are by their very nature global from day one, kind of the secret sauce that accelerates a lot of the value. It's interesting that you mentioned the small, medium and large sized B2B companies. When the car business got big in the U.S., there were 50 car companies.