Examining the effectiveness of E-commerce among SME’s in Polokwane, South Africa

Abstract

New technologies such as the World Wide Web (WWW) of the internet have allowed organizations to advertise and sell their products and services to a global target audience at a much lower cost than traditional retailing. It also discusses the nature of both forms of business and explains a new approach which provides organizations with the opportunity to sell online to enable them to reach increasingly fragmented consumer audience in South Africa more effectively. This article attempts to address the importance of electronic commerce on small businesses in Polokwane, and to provide information on the impact of ecommerce in South African society in general. This research paper also addresses why traditional businesses will not necessarily become obsolete. Both traditional and online forms of business are compared in this project to indicate which form of business is still preferred by organizations today. The paper employed a quantitative research approach and a purposive sampling technique to achieve its objectives.