A Longitudinal Study of Expectations in Small Business Internet Commerce

Abstract

This paper examines the gap between expectation and realization among a group of small Australian firms that engaged in small business Internet commerce (SBIC) over a 20-month period. Essentially, small firms on-line believed that the Internet is important in terms of competitiveness, although some of their early expectations about the ability of SBIC to generate instant competitive advantage had began to wane. The most useful effects of the Internet were in information gathering and time savings, but results in advertising and sales were less encouraging. Internet marketing effectiveness was found to be industry-sector-dependent.