Metropolis* showed how its not meant to be done

While 2000 saw a lot of activity on the South African business-to-business (B2B) market, the three years since then have been relatively calm. Former B2B heavyweight Metropolis* provided most of the activity in 2000 when it closed all of its B2B portals in October of that year, and then delisted from the JSE (after losing R79-million). Metropolis* were running seven vertical B2B portals (sites which provide a “subWeb” of information, product listings, and other features) including techafrica.com, commsafrica.com and sheafrica.com. Metropolis* and their holding company Primedia admitted that they burnt their fingers in the B2B market where revenue was hard to come by. The official line from Metropolis* was that revenue from their vertical B2B marketplaces turned out to be slower than anticipated and the cost of building the infrastructure was higher than they had anticipated. Internet strategist, Arthur Goldstuck says that it was market sentiment rather than a market reality that led to companies turning from B2C commerce to B2B commerce in the first place. These exchanges all focused on signing up customers, they forgot to bring in the suppliers who would flog the stuff to the customers.