WASHINGTON, DC — The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) announced that it will release a set of proposed standards for participation agreements for e-marketplaces. The standards were developed by an NAW task force composed of several distributors of supplies for main-tenance, repair, and operations (MRO).

According to NAW, in the past year, a number of e-marketplaces have been established to bring together sellers and buyers of products and services, including MRO supplies. However, actual operations of these marketplaces have been delayed and many distributors, manufacturers, and other sellers have not agreed to provide their products for sale on the marketplaces.

The organization also says that one roadblock to implementation has been the multiple, individual agreement forms for supplier participation developed by the e-marketplaces. NAW said the forms frequently contain terms that are ill suited for commerce.

Therefore, the task force was formed to develop standards for supplier parti-cipation agreements for e-marketplaces that would promote adoption of non-price terms that would be acceptable to both participants and the e-market-places. For a complete copy of the standards, go to www.nawpubs.org/standards.html (website).

Publication date: 08/27/2001