It is not just securing the contract where the marketplaces come in handy for the small buyer. New marketplaces have enabled their sites with service-management tools too, which even in the simplest cases, would be beyond the reach of small companies. For example, oDesk creates filmstrips of the provider’s online activity (screenshots and Webcam shots). The buyer can literally see what each of the team members is working on. oDesk claims buyers use this visibility to spot check code, see when the provider is working, and see if the provider is getting stuck on any tasks.

While these are improvements for seasoned buyers, most first-time buyers go to the marketplaces not with a big idea that outsourcing creates value for the company, but to somehow get the work done, when they are hard pressed for time. If they like the experience, they try a little more and get hooked. While the time-saving factor is often not highlighted by the suppliers, taken for granted as it is, a large number of buyers often come because of that.

However, the single biggest advantage of the online marketplaces for the small users is that they do not just allow them to leverage outsourcing, but as Radkevitch says unambiguously, they allow the users “to leverage offshore IT outsourcing.” Without the online marketplaces, it would be virtually impossible for such small companies to use what the Fortune 500 companies are betting their future on — employing global labor.

The statistics shows that about 90% of the oDesk users are from outside the U.S. Guru.com, which started with a complete U.S.-based model six years back, today has more than one-third of its suppliers outside the U.S. More than half of the non-U.S suppliers are not from India.

At Rent-A-Coder, where registered suppliers are from more than 100 countries, Romania features in the top three supplier bases almost every month, along with U.S. and India.

This has potential to upset the traditional outsourcing equation that attaches so much importance to location selection. “Vendor location is not so important in online markets, and location risks are leveled off by the controls of the marketplace,” says Radkevitch.

While it is countries like the Philippines and China that often get discussed when it comes to offshore locations, in most marketplaces, it is the Eastern and Central Europeans who give the Americans and Indians a run for their money. Hypothetically, this has potential to even leverage manpower from countries that have the talent but do not meet the minimum criteria when it comes to many other parameters like political stability or infrastructure. Take Pakistan.