VRMcompanies

• E-Lance

One of the first companies to offer buyers the ability to post a project and have vendors bid for it

• Lending Tree

Allows banks to bid for customer's loans

• Clickshare Service Corp.

System for federated authentication of users across multiple independent sites where users can register with any of a plurality of participating service provider and selectively control amount and type of information about them provided to a vending website; includes capability to log and aggregate transactions. Attention data owned by the service-providing site where user has home registration -- not Clickshare or the vending site. Clickshare's role is limited to authentication and logging and does not own any customer relationships itself. (posted by Bill Densmore)

• AttentionTrust / Root Markets

Challenging the (implicit on most of the Web) assumption that attention data is the property of the vendor. Sets this (valuable to vendors) information as a tool that individuals can selectively share with vendors, in order to get the best response from those trusted vendors.

• Vendor/Product Comparison Sites

Sites like Froogle, CNET's reviews and others that aggregate product pricing/availability information are conceptual ancestors of VRM. By implicitly forcing vendors to compete more directly on price and service (all vendors' prices, and often vendor rankings, are displayed together for the person seeking the item or service to evaluate), these sites offer seekers a first, crude tool for Vendor Relationship Management.

• FareCast

(Can anyone point to the site that recommends the optimal time to purchase airline tickets, or other examples?)
done. -cfc

• Connect4Growth works in the corporate environment. Uses the term VRM, too.

• eBay

eBay is a VRM platform ante litteram (perhaps VRM is an eBaynomics’ extension). eBay "help(s) make markets work for both vendors and customers — in ways that don't require the former to "lock in" the latter" Through an auction system, price is not fixed by Vendors, instead Vendors let Customers fix it.