What are the tricks of the portal trade? First, build the site with a good technological foundation that offers flexibility, an attractive interface and communications tools for your users. Design the site simply, bearing in mind that your customers are business users who may not have a great deal of computing experience.

"We&singlequot;re inventing a new way to do business," says Gofish.com&singlequot;s Pete Murray. "You have to find your way to the optimal solution. Design it with interactive modification in mind."

Make the site relevant to your users, preferably through personalization. If your customers want to buy shrimp, they may be turned off if you force them to wade through news about mackerel or shellfish.

One way to keep your existing users-and help new users-is to put key information up front, with choices and selections available on the opening screen. "Chunk related information," says IBM&singlequot;s Mike Shank. "Put all the sports together, all the health information together, all the news together." And, for best results: "Ensure fast downloads," he says.

But don&singlequot;t forget the bottom line: Make the sale. "Make the transaction happen smoothly, seamlessly and ensure that information flows back to the customer to make the transaction portion work." iProcure&singlequot;s Courtney Millwood says. If the transaction is smooth and offers good feedback, people will do business with you again.

As your site grows, make sure you identify other revenue sources as well, Shank says. "Dont&singlequot; miss complementary service providers and transaction influencers." Will partnering with another industry player-or even entering into a little competition-ultimately improve the "value net" cast by your e-marketplace?

Finally, how can Web designers get involved in this business-to-business future?

"They should be looking at XML," Marketsite&singlequot;s Mike Oumato says. "It&singlequot;s what the business community is really interested in. How are we going to push XML from a transaction level to a Web site model? People haven&singlequot;t explored how XML could work in the browser. We have to learn how to take advantage of XML from a design perspective."