UNDERLYING MOTIVATIONS FOR ESTABLISHING E-COMMERCE BUSINESS AND

THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO E-COMMERCE SUCCESS

ABSTRACT

Most businesses have established some kind of Internet presence since the early nineties. The pure online companies conduct business via web sites with online transaction capabilities. Similarly, many brick and mortar companies have supplemented their business operations by using web sites, many of which include features to support the entire sales cycle, from presales to purchase to fulfillment to customer support. This paper examines the reasons companies begin to use e-commerce and whether these e-commerce initiatives have been successful. Two hundred and three Internet business executives were surveyed. A factor analysis indicated that there are two major underlying dimensions -- short-term productivity gains and long-term company competitiveness -- related to establishing e-commerce. Additionally, the results indicate that companies are quite satisfied with their e-commerce initiatives and that the majority of the companies have achieved their projected ROI.