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Capturing supply and demand

Developing your own electronic marketplace requires a number of elements to complete trades - from visitor handling, catalogue presentation and fulfilment solutions. It's the integration of these which creates a market in which selling and buying takes place. This page provides an overview of the specific tools we use to build these markets.

Markets where exchanges are made between buyers and sellers use several different methods; e.g. spot exchanges, auctions, and shopping malls. Despite these variations we are able to offer some generic solutions which we can quickly customise to your needs.

What do you need to create your virtual market?

Visitor and Guest registration

Internet markets demand control of their users. By creating "registered users" you obtain the control you need of visitor traffic to make a service or product offer to your market community. Main Highway's visitor management solutions create the shell of your market. Features include:

• Name and address capture at different levels of hierarchy, e.g. guests or members.
• Configurable self-registration with User I/D and passwords.
• Database configurability to allow you to choose the way you want to manage your visitor records.
• Tiered membership to allow loyality initiatives and/or friend/membership discounts.
• Linkage to our TollWay transactions system to accept and clear payments and handle treasury and fulfilment.

Catalogue, exchange and auction solutions

You will need to build an easily updated product database to allow exchanges to be made.

Single and multi-vendor catalogues, buy/sell exchanges, and auctions are all, at root, database applications using active server technology to build information display "on the fly". We create both bespoke applications or configure an off-the-shelf solution depending on your needs.

Product databases have to be customised to your specifications, pricing method and availability criteria yet their designs always have some generic features. Main Highway's experience in building interactive databases can help you generate the field structure and interfaces you require at economic cost.

Crucially, by integrating our catalogue solutions with our TollWay transactions system and PurchasePoint and SupplyPoint technology we will incorporate the functionality you will need to clear transactions and fulfil trades in the way you want, recognising logged-in buyer permissions and vendor preferences.

Data Management

Having set up your market you have to retain topicality in its product offer and other content. Main Highway has a number of solutions here to help manage your market and its data content.

Data Resources

• Batch uploading of vendor data, suitable for multi-vendor inputs.
• Customised vendor price offer renewals and updating.
• Buy-data viewers customised to both core administration and third party re-sellers.
• Order data viewers for multiple vendors to track orders, consignments and treasury handling.

  Content Resources

• Revolving banner and classified ads to generate revenue.
• Quick upload of news content using our Envoy utility
• News sharing tools and forums.
• Site maintenance and upgrading service.

TollWay transactions system

Main Highway offers a unique open architecture transaction handling system in TollWay (described more fully here). In summary, TollWay allows you as a vendor to decide how you want purchases to be made, who can make them and what purchasing methods they can use. Purchasing is not restricted to credit card, but can also use order and invoicing methods where these are allowed.

TollWay implementation can also include our TollWay Treasury service in which Main Highway handles your treasury function. Order payment and royalty payment bundling, plus cash collection and management services allow you to concentrate on marketing your core business.

In conjunction with SupplyPoint Manager we are able to configure order status viewers with configurable financial information for your supply partners, logistics team, fulfilment house, accounts and any other party involved in your supply chain.

Our Goals

It is, we feel, worth re-stating our shared goals in every market implementation. Main Highway works with you to promote electronic working methods to lower overhead costs and increase productivity. Through our development program for all our market communities we promote your presence, your abilities, and your interests as a profitable networked enterprise.

In addition, Main Highway offers a unique feature - extended reach into a community of communities as part of the Main Highway extranet. When allowed, (the feature is configurable) your members can be found through other communities such as chambers of commerce and trade groups. Main Highway therefore helps you promote your members across our wider community of communities.

Solutions in partnership:

The Main Highway community of communities wants to hear from any user group community that wishes to extend its presence on-line through implementing an exchange market, perhaps becoming one of our local hosts as well. You may be surprised how quickly we can implement our solutions which will work to benefit your membership.

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Perceptions in markets

Creating an electronic marketplace or "exchange" is no small matter. You must be able to dissect the perceptions and psychology of buyers and sellers in great detail.

Markets vary in the strength of interest of those taking part and the solution you adopt must take this into account.

Price transparency and flexibility is a critical issue as you may be competing with existing real world markets.

Competitive markets need to be easily accessible and promote themselves heavily.

Closed user group markets, e.g. some professional B2B exchanges, may allow members only trading, demanding a log-in as a pre-requisite for taking part and use permissions hierarchies for price discrimination and supply approvals.

Main Highway has the core technologies required for market solutions.

Your virtual market could be here too!