The Fit Between Purchase Situations and B2B E-Marketplaces and its Impact on Relationship Success

From a business perspective, the Internet is not merely an alternative channel for marketing or selling products online. Rather, the electronic marketplace enables buyers and sellers to innovate whole business processes from sourcing and production to customer service. These innovations will significantly impact business-to-business interactions and relationships as they offer new ways of collaborating across organizational boundaries. In this paper, the authors argue that the success of introducing e-markets is dependent on a fit between the specific buyer-seller relationship and the characteristics of the e-market. This paper therefore combines a relationship perspective with the e-market literature. An analysis of e-market introductions into 119 buyer-seller relationships shows that success is only achieved if the e-market solution supports relationships and fits a given purchase situation.