This study from eMarketServices on behalf of NorStella and Innovation Norway shows that e-marketplaces is an interesting sales- and marketing channel towards new markets and customers and that companies that are using e-marketplaces see an increased turnover combined with a better result and therefore want to continue using them.

An unexpected result of the study is that companies that have been requested to start using e-marketplaces by existing customers and sell to these, do not see that the e-marketplace makes the salesprocess more efficient. This contradicts other case studies and could be an interesting topic for a new study.

A challenge for the e-marketplaces is to address the problems that companies have in presenting themselves well enough for potential customers, and that this problem also causes some of the companies to find the e-marketplaces difficult to use.

The combination of beeing little used (2-3% of the European SME), but at the same time giving positive results (84% of the respondents in this study) and desire for continued use (86% of the respondents) tells us that SME need more information about available e-marketplaces and how these can be used.