e-Marketplace

e-Marketplaces are trading exchanges that facilitate and promote buying, selling and business communities among trading partners within certain industries. These solutions represent some of the most comprehensive and complex e-business applications that exist today. There are three types of e-Marketplaces:

• Trading Exchange
• Sell-Side Hub
• Buy-Side Hub

A Trading Exchange allows buyers and sellers to trade goods and services on a public site. As shown in the figure above, the Composite pattern for a Trading Exchange consists of:

• The Self-Service business pattern that facilitates the interaction between the buyer and the e-Marketplace. Activities such as purchasing from an aggregated catalog, participating in auctions or making exchanges are performed using this pattern.
• The Self-Service business pattern also helps the non-commerce seller perform functions such as updating the catalog, checking orders, checking Request for Quotations and accessing orders.
• The Information Aggregation business pattern is used to create the e-Marketplace catalog from the multiple sources of suppliers' product files, pricing files and advertising literature and so on.
• The Application Integration pattern is used to integrate these two business patterns seamlessly and also to integrate with existing e-Marketplace support systems like billing.
• The Access Integration pattern is used to provide a Portal interface, single sign-on functions and personalization functions for the e-Marketplace.

In addition to these basic functions there could be many additional functions that can be added to an e-Marketplace as it evolves. For instance:

• The Collaboration business pattern can be used to enable the purchasing approval process
• The Extended Enterprise business pattern can be used on both the buyer and seller side of the e-Marketplace. On the buyer side, the pattern defines the interaction between the buyer's procurement system and the commerce functions of the e-Marketplace. On the seller side, this pattern defines the interaction between the procurement functions of the e-Marketplace and its suppliers.

In a Sell-Side Hub the seller owns the e-Marketplace and uses it as a vehicle to sell goods and services to prospective buyers across the Web. As shown in the figure above, the Composite pattern for the Sell-Side Hub includes the following patterns:

• Access Integration pattern that helps provide a unified customer interface
• Self-Service business pattern that allows users to browse through a catalog, create an order and place an order with the hub
• Information Aggregation business pattern that is used to create the e-Marketplace catalog from the multiple sources of suppliers' product files, pricing files and advertising literature and so on
• Application Integration patterns that integrate the Business Patterns that are a part of the Sell-side hub

In addition to these basic functions, there can be several variations on this pattern. These include:

• Adding a Collaboration business pattern that allows for and enables auctions, reverse auctions and other collaborative buying functions
• Adding an Information Aggregation business pattern that will help integrate and present a unified catalog that combines raw catalog data with expert advice, product comparisons and recommendations that can be pulled off public Internet sites
• Adding an Extended Enterprise business pattern that will integrate the Sell-Side hub with external service providers such as a financial institution to handle credit processing or shipping company to handle the physical delivery of goods

In a Buy-Side Hub the buyer of goods owns the e-Marketplace and uses it as a vehicle to leverage the buying or procurement budget to solicit the best deals for goods and services from prospective sellers across the Web. The Composite pattern for the Buy-Side Hub includes:

• Access Integration pattern that helps provide a unified customer sign-on capability and a personalized user interface
• Collaboration business pattern that will allow users to post bids, participate in auctions and respond to Requests for Proposals (RFP) and Requests For Quotations (RFQ)
• Self-Service business pattern that allows buyers to create RFQs and RFPs
• Application Integration patterns that integrate the Buy-Side Hub with procurement systems and other core business applications

In addition to these basic functions, there can be several variations on this pattern. These include:

• Adding an Information Aggregation business pattern that will help integrate content sources across the Web
• Adding an Extended Enterprise business pattern that will integrate the buy-side hub with external service providers such as financial institutions

If you're not yet sure that your business problem can be solved by the functionality enabled through an e-Marketplace solution design, the e-Marketplace composite pattern general guidelines page provides additional information on e-Marketplaces and their design.

If you've determined that the e-Marketplace composite pattern can provide an appropriate solution design for your business need, the next step is to select an appropriate variation. eMarketplaces continue to evolve. For the moment we are providing the reader with two variations from which to choose:

• Sell-Side Hub variation
• General eMarketplace variation

Sell-Side Hub variation

The Sell-Side Hub variation is based on the recently published IBM Redbook B2B e-commerce with WebSphere Commerce Business Edition V5.4, Patterns for e-business Series. This Redbook follows BASE Pty. Ltd, an imaginary company with realistic e-business and IT requirements through the project development life cycle. As it turns out, the needs of this imaginary company match the functionality provided by the eMarketplace Sell-Side Hub variation. The Sell-Side Hub design data that follows is limited to the scope of information normally presented on this Web site. Please review B2B e-commerce with WebSphere Commerce Business Edition V5.4, Patterns for e-business Series. for a thorough treatment of the issues and processes that accompany a full-scale implementation of the Sell-Side Hub variation.

General eMarketplace variation

The General eMarketplace variation is applicable to all three types of eMarketplaces: Trading Exchanges, Sell-Side Hubs and Buy-Side Hubs. It has not been updated as recently as the Sell-Side Hub variation. This general eMarketplace design is a complicated solution implemented using a specific Application pattern. This single Application pattern, however, contains five sub-patterns, providing solution flexibility to address the specific needs of the business process being automated.

• Feasibility:
  This material will help you determine the high-level shape of an Extended Enterprise solution, and can ensure your approach looks similar to other successful implementations. Reuse of prior approaches can be an effective way to begin most major projects. Obviously, modifications will be needed for any unique requirements of a given set of partners. This pattern provides a drill-down from high-level architecture to low-level designs and guidance.

• Risk:
  Basing new projects on prior designs and ideas helps to lower the risk of failure. Creating or inventing approaches for each project tends to result in a lower success rate. Frequently, projects begun "from scratch" simply do not work and have major exposures in such areas as security, performance, availability, undefined requirements, and cost overrun.

• Cost-benefit:
  By starting with reasonably complete architecture you can save considerable development time and can obtain assurance that the end solution will have a much higher chance of success. Actual savings will vary, but project teams have realized a 10% to 50% reduction of work effort in their design and architecture phases alone.