Is Retailing Ready for Business-to-Business?

Many analysts are predicting that 2000 will explode with Business-to-Business (B2B) developments on the Internet. Is retailing, the ultimate Business-to-Consumer (B2C) industry ready for the coming B2B boom?
Will retailers begin to take full advantage of the ability to connect with both suppliers and customers through the Internet? From their purchases from vendors through their sales to consumers, the Internet appears to be an ideal medium for retailers, one that can expand and adapt to also include their brick-and-mortar stores.
Yet the retail industry has been historically slow to change to new technology. Of course some retailers, led by the giant discounter Wal-Mart, embraced the early form of ecommerce, EDI with gusto. However the majority of retailers still buy many goods with purchase orders transmitted to suppliers via fax. Still even fewer retailers are using the Internet for purchasing than currently use EDI. Is the issue a reluctance among retailers to obtain and use the technology or is it based more on the vendors' lack of Internet B2B capability?
According to a recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) 68 percent of responding manufacturing companies said they're not currently using electronic commerce for business transactions. NAM's president, Jerry Jasinowski said, "no one questions the importance of B2B e-commerce, yet relatively few manufacturers are participating in it."
Jasinowski claims the NAM study shows, "a wide disparity between the recognition by business that the Internet is a vital new form of commerce and the actual application of that knowledge by American industry." Would retailers changing to a more Internet B2B method of conducting business spur more vendors into completing transactions online? Or will the revolution need to be led by the vendors?
Wal-Mart became the retail success story of the 1990's based largely on their strong EDI-fueled logistics. Is the next retail success story going to be the company able to harness the power of the Internet for full circle B2B and B2C transactions?