ShopNow.com to announce B2B portal

ShopNow.com, a firm that helps e-commerce companies set up shop on the Internet, will announce later today that it is launching b2bNow.com, a global business-to-business portal.

News of the portal launch caused ShopNow.com's stock to gain $6.75, or about 40 percent, to $23.75 in morning trading. The stock has traded as high as $25.12 and as low as $10.93 during the past 52 weeks.

The Seattle-based company said the new portal will contain about 500,000 business-to-business listings, including links for products and services, business Web hosting and store building services and tools.

ShopNow.com's move to set up a business-to-business, or B2B, portal comes at a time when the nascent B2B sector is witnessing a nearly unprecedented explosion. Venture capital firms, consulting firms and established technology companies are rushing to take part in what is widely expected to become an Internet gold-mine.

B2B transactions in the United States are expected to increase 33 percent each year, with $2.8 trillion changing hands through business-to-business purchases, according to management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group.

Forrester Research has estimated that the B2B industry will explode to $1.52 trillion in 2003 from about $131 billion in 1999.

But ShopNow.com's B2B portal faces stiff competition from established players like Ariba, a leading firm whose products help transform companies into B2B businesses. Ariba runs a site called Ariba Network which connects buyers and sellers.

Other competitors of ShopNow.com's b2bNow.com include sites like BizProLink and Intellifact.com.

"Aggregating a significant amount of customers is crucial to the longevity of any business in this space--especially when talking about B2B," said J.C. Simbana, an analyst with American Frontier, a Denver-based brokerage firm. "It is vital to get a critical mass of clients of big businesses to become a viable company to survive in this space."

b2bNow.com, operated by ShopNow.com's business-to-business division, will allow companies to buy, sell and promote their products and services in 62 business categories. The categories include legal and accounting services, as well as venture capital, construction, petrochemicals and agriculture.

Analysts expect B2B players to flock to such portals since they don't have to rely as heavily on expensive mass advertising as business-to-consumer merchants, such as Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com and other online retailers.

While the products and services are not nearly as flashy as products listed at business-to-consumer sites like Amazon.com, Buy.com and other online retailers, the B2B sector is expected to help streamline corporate buying and selling, resulting in huge savings for companies and tremendous gains for those offering the B2B services.

"As one of the Web's largest business-to-business portals with access to 175 international markets, we enable businesses around the world to grow their businesses over the Internet and save valuable time and money while developing their Internet businesses," Dwayne Walker, ShopNow.com chief executive officer, said in a statement.

[hamftech]

Hamf Tech a global operations enabler and visionary in the BPO/IT industry whose services address specific needs of Creative, communications, internet technology product development ,back office services and also engineering product design and data management. Each vocation that we handle is exclusively personalized for our client needs. Our power is our well-informed staff and their skill to deliver 100% quality services to our clients in a timely method. With the help of our workflow and custom project management skills we are very much confident to meet your business requirements with high quality guarantee. We are flexible in our approach and focused on fruitful long term business relationship.
Hamf Tech : Services
Creative Design Services :
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Today there will be millions of searches performed on the Internet, many of them looking for exactly what you are selling. The process of getting your website to the top of the search engines is known as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO has proven to be one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing available.
*(Our Procedure Basic SEO ,SMO , Link Building , Traffic Generation for websites etc and also Providing CPA(cost per action ) ads to clients ie we promote the client product or service across the internet the client pay us per visitor/download/lead. This allows to provide the client with design of an ad page , ad banner or any other ad material and also a tracking software to check the statistics of the ad page we create for the client.)
? In on-page optimization, we offer services such as:
? Competitors and Search Position Analysis
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Development of both tailor made as well as general purpose windows applications as per the requirements of the clients in fields like retail, manufacturing , distribution, small scale offices and freelance operators.
*In House project at hand is a general billing/accounts/CRM windows application which can be utilized by clients in any field , mainly targeting and audience in the smaller sectors as well small home office or freelancers in handling their accounts and finances . At present we have orders for 5 installations of the software .
Advantage To Clients
In addition to seamless coordination in strategy, implementation, and management of their technology programs, we are passionate about finding the right fit between our capabilities and the business possibilities of existing and emerging technologies and are determined to create a real, lasting value for our clients
Current Projects
Web Design : Hotel White Rose ,Fort Cochin ( Going on )
Back End Design : Al-falak, U A E ( Awaiting start confirmation)
Contact Information
Ph: 91484-4023396
Website :www.hamftech.com
Email : [e-mail]




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