A Qualitative Study of the E-commerce Process: an Entrepreneurial Perspective

This research provides an experiential perspective of the process used by successful electronic commerce entrepreneurs. A big picture view or model of the electronic commerce process emerged from over fifty observations, interviews, and follow-up interactions. Observations, interviews, and follow-up interactions provided a rich description of the electronic commerce process elements as well as key inter-relationships of process elements. Emergent themes included (a) utilization of e-commerce process, (b) process inter-relationships, (c) fundamental knowledge, skills, and abilities, (d) opportunity assessment, (e) market research, (f) competitive assessment, (g) strategy development, (h) financial development, (i) risk assessment, (j) technical development, (k) web review, (l) technical management, (m) launch and implementation, and (n) on-going innovation. Inter-relationships between the themes were identified and explored.