Most of the E-commerce platforms we evaluated show their business-to-consumer heritage. They're still hard-pressed to handle more than two shipping and billing addresses for one customer--let alone the complex pricing, payment, and logistics requirements of business customers. Expect E-commerce platform vendors to expand their offerings in this area, or to partner with vendors such as Luna.

In some business-to-business scenarios, the seller may be providing goods indirectly, through a distributor or reseller channel. For these instances, the seller's site must be able to incorporate product catalog information (including images and descriptions) from suppliers or manufacturers. Thus, E-commerce platforms must support the ability to syndicate catalog content from multiple suppliers, apply the proper application logic for formatting and pricing, and present the information in a consolidated fashion to buyers.

In addition, if the supplier provides an online application such as an online product configurator, the seller should be able to syndicate this application to the buyer without having to re-create it.

Intershop Communications Inc. offers some of the most sophisticated business-to-business content and application syndication we've seen. Intershop's enfinity makes it easy for companies to selectively share content and applications with its business partners and suppliers. For example, Compaq is using Intershop's software to syndicate its catalog and E-commerce applications to the Web sites of thousands of authorized Compaq retailers and dealers in Germany.

Reporting is another key area for business customers. It used to be that when you asked for reports on your commerce site, you were handed a raft of graphs and charts indicating the number of hits, the length of visitors' sessions, and performance metrics. While this information is informative for site architecture and usability enhancements, business-to-business sites require more detailed commerce reporting. For example, merchants need to know the average sale per customer segment, as well as which products are the most profitable on the site.

Many E-commerce platforms have begun to balance their reporting to include both site and commerce analytics. But again, commerce activity-reporting requirements are different for business-to-business than for business-to-consumer. For example, marketplace participants need much more granular data on the profitability of the marketplace for their companies.

Identifying and reporting on the performance of participants in business-to-business commerce requires software tools that provide multidimensional data analysis. For example, companies need to know if they have been able to meet their pricing and contract requirements, or if their partners or suppliers have performed better when it comes to meeting spot or direct sourcing requirements.

Intershop is a leader in the area of reporting, providing bundled online analytical processing software from Cognos Inc. This solution enables Intershop users to organize the commerce site data and provide special functions for analysis and reporting.

If business customers are having trouble checking inventory levels and tracking the orders they've placed online, the major reason is a lack of back-end connectivity within the E-commerce site. Back-office connectivity is especially critical for business-to-business sites in which buyers are procuring critical materials or goods that will have an impact on the business if not delivered on time.

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