Introduction
E-marketplace is defined as the exchange of goods, services, and money through Internet technology to facilitate the real-time of information of business transactions. E-marketplaces are divided in different areas of business activities as it brings more buyers and sellers vie the Internet to contact their business relationships. E-marketplace in the following countries as they are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, and Oman. E-marketplace is divided according to the following transactions; b2b as business-to- business transactions, b2c as business-to-customer transactions, c2c as customer-to-customer transactions, among others business transactions that can take place in a country (Adam and Deans2008. pp 2-5). Middle East invented and introduced new concepts, diversification and environment integration in the country to assist it produce better e-marketplace. Advanced technology was to be used by buyers and sellers in the market.
Effects of e-marketplaces
There are different factors that have affected companies from selecting and using e-marketplaces, these factors include: stable competition in the market environment is affected by e-marketplace, e-marketplace have influenced companies scales, current conditions of the company may influence the use of e-marketplace and e-market is also affected by documentation and computerization. List of contacts in Middle East include email list plus contact names, categorized email, top executive business contacts, and fax business contacts. Email list plus the name of contacts is a preferred list for sending personalized offers as it contains company name, contacts, address, phone number, fax, city, email address and website addresses (Adam and Deans2008. pp 2-5). Email list is preferred for sending offers for different categories. Contacts for top managers can be selected from the top executive contacts for direct and personalized marketing campaigns and it is arranged in ranks. Email and fax contacts are used to send offers for direct mailing and fax marketing. There is an increase in the number of buyers and sellers who were not to transact online. Middle East has produced 85% of the total number and value of the transactions transacted regionally. It is predicted to have an increase in the Middle East countries over 15% in the future as its good infrastructure development, tough government supporting online services, and fast growth of Internet services in the country (Chircu and Kauffman 2008. p 38). Saudi Arabia introduced an online payments method using One Card notes that several issues have to be used to support e-commerce. Middle East countries had few laws that protect Internet users and security issues on its threats resulted to Internet users in the country (Chircu and Kauffman 2008. p 38). There are also some of the disadvantages in e-marketplaces as one has to monitor the trend of the market, it needs more funds to develop its infrastructure, encouraging policy development, and creating better quality services. Most of the Middle East countries has signed with many online payment agreements with low-cost airlines that have established an online travel-related products under National Net Venture Company. There was also the introduction of two online features that can allow customers to access OneCard accounts from their mobile phones.
E-marketplaces rate in the Middle East regions
Globalization of financial markets and other sectors have resulted to an international and stiff competition in the banking sectors of Middle East and its regions. Saudi Arabia has a stable economy compared to other countries as it is dominated by the oil sector that has 35% of the Gross Domestic Period. There are numeral of issue that ought to be considered when transacting e-marketplace include how fit is the industry, management of and ownership of the e-marketplace with its finances, costs of e-marketing and technical issues among other factors. Information systems that are use in the e-marketplace should have similar features for easy access of transactions. The leading business-to-business e-market place in Middle East has enhanced its promotion by getting onto face book to attract more customers in the market (Buhalis 2007. p 67). Gulfoil and gas portal is a specialised e-marketplace for oil services in Middle East and its regions as these products was government projects so they had to market it in the market. RAK was established as a trade online exhibition for business transactions that have features to promote one-product and market goods and services in the Internet. The current utilization of e-marketplaces pace in the Middle East region including the following countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and Bahrain has the following statistics on that issue as these tables shows the number of e-marketplaces users
Tables show number of e-marketplaces users and utilization
Source: Eraqi M. I., It as a means for enhancing competitive advantage, Anatolia, Turkey, 2007.
Diagram for comparisons between the utilization pace of e-marketplaces
The graph above shows the number of e-market users, utilization averages for different regions, and their utilization averages.
E-marketplace in Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and UAE had more business-to-business activities of e-commerce than the business to customer e-commerce following the past years e-marketplace analysis.
Source: Adam & Deans, 2008, p.3
This table shows the current e-marketplace status and the intended e-marketplace status in percentages in the current and future status. The current status of e-commerce in Middle East indicates that the many countries amounting to 61% have no plans to use e-commerce with only 16% of the countries using e-commerce. However, the future intended status is that more countries ill implement the use of e-commerce while the countries with no plans being reduced at the rate of 48% and 42% respectively.
Conclusion
The current utilization of e-marketplaces pace in the Middle East region is low including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and Bahrain as the above table and diagram shows the number of e-marketplaces users and utilization. This is so because of the government support in those regions and pace at which the technology is growing compared to other regions in the world (Hoffman, Novak and Peralta 2007. p 93). It can be derived that the more the country has been developed in terms of infrastructure the more the e-marketplace is supported in those countries compared to undeveloped countries in the world. There are also an increasing number of Internet users in the currents years and more are willing to join e-marketplace in the coming years. Many of the most developed Middle East countries that use e-marketplace are supported by their government system as they are use more funds in developing the country infrastructures. This infrastructure enable smooth running of e-marketplace in the country as it application has no more security threats and friendly applications to many users.
List of References
Adam, S. and Deans, K. R. Web qual: an e-commerce audit, fib Australian world wide web conference (pp. 2-5), Southern Cross University, Hypermedia References, HREFI, Australia, 2008.
Buhalis, D., Etourism: information technology for strategic management. Prentice Hall, London, 2007.
Chircu, A. M., and Kauffman, R. J. Reintermediation strategies in business-to- Business electronic commerce, international journal of electronic Commerce, 4 (4):7-42, New York, 2008.
Hoffman, D. L., Novak, T. P., and Peralta, M, A., Building consumer trust Online, communications of the acm, 42(4): 80-85, UK, 2007.