Primarily, an e-marketplace is not so much about technology as it is about the people and the transactions. Altra cultivated sales and professional services groups that had personal relationships with buyers and sellers as well as an understanding of what buyers and sellers want to do on an online exchange, Braziel says. That's not the transitional process that we've seen at all. Exchanges also have to do a better job of assuring suppliers that their participation will clearly benefit them. Indeed, the best way for exchanges to make sure that the interests of both suppliers and buyers are being met is to make their value proposition clear, says Thomas Koulopoulos, president of the Delphi Group, a Boston-based consultancy.
Liquidity comes afterward.
There are people who are trading, conducting transactions, and they need a mechanism that will allow them to do that a little easier, a little faster. So if a founder of a community or a trading exchange can't even answer that question, their prospects for accumulating membership just aren't good.