Digital Exchanges Digital exchanges are independently-owned marketplaces that allow multiple suppliers and purchasers to trade in real time. Most operate in vertical markets, and earn commissions on transactions. They are particularly employed for spot-purchasing by large companies in the IT, food and industrial equipment sectors. eProcurement Systems Third party software enables companies and their business facilities to communicate directly with suppliers, and effectively manage all interactions between them. Such interactions include correspondence, bids, questions and answers, previous pricing, multiple emails sent to multiple participants, and customized catalogs where purchases will encompass handling, shipping and insurance charges, and financial data can be imported directly into company financial systems. Industrial Consortia An industry consortium is an industry-owned vertical market that enables buyers to purchase direct inputs (both goods and services) from a limited number of invited participants Private Industrial Networks As the name suggests, private industrial networks are web-enabled networks that coordinate transactions between specific companies — in all aspects and all divisions: suppliers, distributors, retail, procurement, delivery and so on. Such systems are also called collaborative, as they facilitate efficiencies throughout the network. Many large companies (Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nike, HewlettPackard, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Dell and General Electric) operate private industrial networks, which indeed form the largest part of B2B ecommerce today.