My B2B experience was started with a vertical focus since the very beginning. It wasn’t anything strategic. I was working for an Internet startup backed by a trade show company. Trade show industry is always vertical in nature. So, I replicated the business model, built it on Internet, and launched the first Internet trade show portal in China.

I think it makes sense to understand how vertical Internet B2B media works through the trade show model. A good trade show should be able to demonstrate not only the new exhibits and product trend, but also the whole value system. It isn’t simply booth selling. A serious organizer needs to do a lot of homeworks to understand the value system, mixes and matches with different value chains of the upstream suppliers, midstream intermediaries, and the downstream buyers.

So if you ask me what is the difference between the “generalists” online sourcing portals such as Alibaba and Global Sources and the vertical portals, this is how I will draw the line. Simply saying, I think vertical portals are more knowledge-driven versus the generalists portals, they tend to be more product-driven.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.
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Take plastics industry as an example, the upstream chemical suppliers will always find their applications for the downstream plastics buyers in the automobile industry. So, imagine when you need to provide a user experience that walks people through one vertical integration intercepts with other vertical integration, that a.k.a. “Value Grid,” it won’t be an easy one compares with just the two-dimensional matrix for product and price.

And this is also what I think the shortcoming of the generalists’ portals. Even though they now value quality over quantity and start providing trusted search, in my opinion, the usability and user experience still fall behind the value grid. The generalists’ portals are still very price and product driven.

In my previous post, I mentioned the first Internet vertical B2B ad exchange and the e-business coalition for the chemical industry. It was a company called “Omnexus.” Omnexus was backed by BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont, Ticona, and a number of chemical business conglomerates. It was one of the first vertical Internet B2B portals that pioneered features like B2B banner ad exchange, knowledge-base, e-marketplace, everything built around the value grid for the chemical vertical in almost eight years ago.

Now I look back, still feeling amazing!

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