Mostly true

Post #197,219 by ben_tilly 3/4/05 2:50:50 PM Reply	Mostly true What you're saying is all true (and I'll send back comments to Andrew about it), but there are notable exceptions. For instance one of the companies that was trying to create a frictionless market happened to be a site named AuctionWeb that was hosted at [link\|http://www.ebay.com/\|http://www.ebay.com/]. It didn't exactly fold. ;-) Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #197,223 by drewk 3/4/05 3:07:47 PM Reply	Andrew's obviously talking B2B Interesting statistic would be: what percentage of commerce is B2B vs B2C? If, for instance, B2B makes up 80% of all commerce, existing relationships and single points of contact will be much more valuable than lowest price. === Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link\|http://DocHope.com\|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link\|http://DocHope.com\|http://DocHope.com]
Post #197,249 by Andrew Grygus 3/4/05 6:06:53 PM 3/4/05 6:08:19 PM Reply	My very favorite was a B to C WebVan, an online grocer. They deliberately and firmly refused to have anyone in the company from the "old economy". With no exerienced buyers they were paying a lot more for everything than established grocers, and with nobody who knew anything about warehousing and distribution they ran through an incredible amount of money in an incredibly short time. I guess that's what the "new economy" was all about, but it's old now. I have one of their refrigerator magnets and the liquidator's auction catalog around here somewhere. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx] Edited by Andrew Grygus March 4, 2005, 06:08:19 PM EST Expand All History
Post #197,441 by ben_tilly 3/7/05 4:27:27 AM Reply	Oops! I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #197,440 by ben_tilly 3/7/05 4:26:36 AM Reply	I don't know the breakdown... but I think that I've seen claims that most business is business to business. Certainly that's been true of every job that I've had, it has all been companies that were business to business. (Some consumers may have thought that Rent.com was doing business with them, but we weren't. Like in advertising, consumers are product, not customers. Though obviously we can't actually treat them as product and still successfully deliver them...) Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #197,245 by Andrew Grygus 3/4/05 5:50:13 PM Reply	But it isn't exactly frictionless . . . Seems there's a fair amount of friction between eBay and their sellers with this year's annual fee increase (and they've had to back off a little on some fees). [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #197,439 by ben_tilly 3/7/05 4:23:25 AM Reply	True but... that's far less friction than used to exist in the same market. It is like comparing moving a puck across sandpaper as opposed to air hockey. Sure, there is friction in air hockey, the puck will not travel forever, but compared to sandpaper it might as well not be there! Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

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