This project is no longer active and all user accounts are now disabled. It is archived here for reference purposes only.

Online marketplaces

Online marketplaces (or electronic marketplaces or e-marketplaces) bring together buyers and sellers to communicate, collaborate, and undertake business transactions. The goal is to simplify the buying and selling process, create new market opportunities and open up competition across geographic boundaries.
An online marketplace generates income from transaction fees (usually a percentage of the sale), licensing fees, advertising, the sale of marketing data and through providing additional services such as membership, verification services, and the screening of buyers and sellers. The benefits of online marketplaces include access to a wider range of buyers and suppliers, faster purchase decisions and availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. eBay and the already mentioned Amazon are examples of online marketplaces.
Social care online marketplaces typically list products and services in the following categories: accommodation, adapted products and equipment, help, finance, legal and professional services, lifestyle, leisure, culture and community, education and training, health and therapy, nursing care services, personal and domestic support, repairs and maintenance services, carer's services and transport.
Reputation, trust and access are important elements in the purchase of personal care services sold online. In particular, self-funding individuals and their families purchasing care services need an easy way to identify providers who have been 'vetted' by a 'trusted organisation'. It is important that all service providers can demonstrate the quality and value of the services that they offer. It is equally important that service users and commissioners have a method of assessing the quality of services and comparing them when making purchasing choices.

While there are national and international standards applicable to all businesses such as Investors in People, ISO accreditation and BS EN ISO 9001, and regulatory requirements for care providers, there is no recognised scheme for e-marketplace care providers. In discussions with e-marketplace care providers, concern was expressed about the lack of a recognised quality mark which can acknowledge currently unregulated services as a trusted and approved source. Glasgow City Council, for example, is working with some local authorities in England to develop an online shopping site on the Amazon model, where service users can decide for themselves where they want to spend their personal budgets.

Self Directed Support essentially empowers service users as consumers and one of the challenges we face is making sure they are in a position to make informed choices. Ideally someone would be able to go onto the site and see if others have had a good or bad experience with a particular service or provision. Service users would have the same experience as someone going onto Amazon to check out what other people have to say and what alternative goods or services they checked out or decided to buy. (On the Record: More for Less with Help from Amazon's Approach, Fitzpatrick, 2011) https://www.socialcareideasfactory.com/articles/article.php?sectionID=29&articleID=139

Yorkshire and Humber Joint Improvement Partnership (2010) have explored whether investment in a regional e-marketplace was practically feasible and financially viable for the public purse. A report commissioned from Gradus Consulting (not published but shared with the author) suggested that, while there was limited evidence available in terms of costs and savings to councils, the likely price of putting a regional e-marketplace solution in place amounts to less than 1% of the aggregated regional spend on adult social care. The report concludes that a regional e-marketplace benefits from economies of scale in being able to aggregate information and functions.

That consortium of fifteen local authorities in Yorkshire and Humberside is now sourcing a provider to deliver an e-marketplace for social care for each participating local authority. It is intended that the e-marketplace provider will supply the specified functionality for each participating local authority to include an electronic information hub for social care customers and an electronic messaging capability between service providers and customers. Customers and service providers will be able to complete financial transactions without the local authority being directly involved. The tender requires that the new system is capable of significant integration with adult social care systems in each participating local authority.

The Northeast Improvement and Efficiency Partnership has also looked at the the feasibility of setting up an electronic marketplace for health and social care services in Northumberland and Newcastle so that individual budget holders can explore, choose and purchase support, care and equipment online. Part of the project involved considering how the Shop4Support model might fit the authorities' requirements and how other solutions such as Slivers of Time might relate to it. Essentially the project explored how this idea could work locally, how it might be modified to support regional working, whether it is worth further investment and has helped to identify efficiency savings that may be offered through the use of an electronic social care marketplace

The appraisal process appears still to be underway, but full project documentation is available from https://www.northeastiep.gov.uk/adult/electronicmarketplace.htm.

>A challenge for e-marketplaces is how to achieve a critical mass of contributing suppliers in order to offer variety and choice. For example, small scale, independent operators such as Mobility Scotland offering a spare parts mail order service and emergency call-out facilities for wheelchair repairs in the central belt of Scotland, does not seem to show up in any of the e-marketplaces that were examined. This serves as reminder that Google's advanced search (choose "shopping" from the left hand column) is in effect an e-marketplace.