The development of an internet marketing adoption framework for small business enterprises: results from an online focus group

This paper presents the development of an Internet Marketing Adoption Framework for Small Business Enterprises based on the result gathered from an online focus group. The expert panels for this online focus group consist of academics from a variety of disciplines. The main areas of expertise sought were: e-commerce and small businesses, marketing, ICTs, and small business in developing countries (or cross-section of these areas) and it provided different thoughts and perspectives which covered all aspects for the framework. As the results from the discussion, a number of changes were suggested to be made on initial framework, in terms of the structure and its components. Based on the discussion, two new indicators were suggested to be added as new antecedent to Internet marketing; the customer and competitor indicators which it will becomes the external forces that pressure small businesses to adopt the Internet marketing as a marketing tool. The pressures and demand from customers and competitors will indicate small businesses to diverse their marketing activities via the Internet. Besides, the experts suggested considering the business strategies into more micro perspectives which appropriate to comply the uniqueness of small business nature.