As consumers, we can order almost anything online in a few clicks. Businesses, on the other hand, are stuck in the dark ages, often relying on the phone, email, fax, and even pen and paper when it comes to ordering goods or services. 

Whilst consumer-facing marketplaces have become an essential part of our daily lives, business-to-business marketplaces are only just beginning to emerge. Think back to the days of eBay and Craigslist, that’s pretty much where we stand with B2B marketplaces. Horizontal e-commerce solutions like Alibaba and Amazon 

Due to the large AOVs and complex workflows involved in B2B transactions, B2B marketplaces generally require a more complex product and are more likely to be SaaS-enabled than B2C marketplaces.

This should, in theory, mean that they are able to provide more value to their users, particularly in terms of convenience, which should lower the risk of disintermediation and result in a much stickier user base similar to a typical SaaS business.