Electronic Trading Opportunities
Introduction

The Internet offers companies of all sizes new ways and new opportunities to trade and carry out business. Business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce is expected to outstrip business-to-consumer (B2C) eCommerce and is considered to have enormous potential as an Internet growth area. B2B ecommerce was valued at €77 billion in 2001 in Europe alone (EU), and is expected to reach €2.2 trillion in 2006 according to Forrester Research. A recent report from International Data Corp estimates that world-wide B2B eCmmerce will be worth $4.3 trillion by 2005  ETOs, or electronic trading opportunities, are one avenue for businesses to trade electronically.

The term ‘ETO’appears to have been first developed by the United Nations (UN), although this function is now present in other commercial trading arenas. ETO systems harness the power of information technologies and the Internet, to bring trading partners together. For example, by using such facilities businesses around the world can offer products and services for sale, place requests for products and services, or look for agents and distributors. These electronic trading facilities make it much quicker and simpler for potential trading partners to be brought together, compared with traditional systems, and make conducting business easier and more efficient. There are an increasing number of such systems available on the Internet, many focused specifically on the needs of SMEs.