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Impact on Prices (2)Filed Under: General

From a theoretical perspective, small business and rural enterprises can benefit greatly with e-commerce as they gain access to more customers (even globally) and can even compete with large businesses since e-commerce is a “level playing field.” Since SMEs are known for greater internal efficiencies, they may have an advantage over large businesses. However, recent studies indicate that the adoption of e-commerce by small business (as either a buyer or supplier in B2B and/or B2C environments) has not been as rapid as would be anticipated. Reasons cited for this include the cost, technology hurdles, and lack of expertise. E-commerce demands fundamental shifts in business strategies, operations and technologies. Many participating SMEs indicated that they have limited access to information about the business models and technologies that are the basis of e-commerce success. Lack of knowledgeable staff in SMEs is also responsible for non-adoption of e-commerce. This will result in SMEs being non-competitive in an e-commerce environment (Auger and Gallaugher, 1997).

Conclusions

As electronic commerce grows, there will be important socio-economic side effects. Although IT has the potential to reduce disparities between nations, asymmetric access to its benefits by different sections of society can have far reaching social and economic implications. Our research suggests that e-commerce technologies are helping organizations, societies and nations to accelerate their socio-economic growth and to provide more opportunities for businesses to grow, but it has also created many challenges and
effects across numerous domains of society, and poses many challenges for policy makers. In this chapter we have identified a comprehensive set of socio-economic variables that are influenced by e-commerce. Further empirical validation could be done for these variables in different countries.

Taken From : Digital Economy – Impacts, Influences and Challenges