Unlike shopping for business products, consumers take it for granted that we can see alternative prices side by side in many sites across the web. Amazon, Froogle, CNet, Shopzilla are among hundreds of sites we all use to find an online source for a product.
There are certainly sites that want to give you comparison pricing in B2B but often they are violating terms of use of the data they present on thier sites. They scrape it from authorized vendors because these vendors terms of use disallow the use of the data by others for commercial purposes.
MarketingSherpa's reports that 82% of technology marketers want to keep thier pricing somewhat confidential requiring the prospect to reach out to the company. They report evidence that this practice may cut companies off from new prospects and hot prospects. Open pricing can be an assett. "89% of decision makers were able to recall a purchase where open pricing had a specific impact on the progress of the purchase."
In the world of electronic components, showing comparative pricing between distributors is not an approved practice. Is this going to ultimately go the way of the consumer marketplace? We are already seeing signs that this may be the case. Newark has fired the first bullet. Newark is now posting product pricing on Google. Other customer studies say this is what customers want. I personally think other catalog distributors won't let Newark have this advantage all to themselves and begin to follow suit. 
Jeff
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