An exploratory study of small business Internet commerce issues

Internet adoption by small business is important to the generation of critical mass for Internet commerce - governments in the G8 countries are setting up initiatives to ensure that small businesses adopt Internet commerce. This paper reports of a qualitative study into why small businesses are online. The study found that the small business Internet commerce (SBIC) phenomenon is still in its infancy, although small businesses are finding e-mail useful for business communication and document transfer; the perception of long-term benefits and potential business opportunities is what is driving SBIC; at present, the uptake of Internet-based financial transactions is still slow; there is almost no integration between the Internet and internal applications; and, finally, that SBIC seems likely to continue to expand in this sector of market only if small firms actually experience tangible benefits in the future. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.