E-Commerce Challenges for Caribbean Businesses

Abstract

The global environment of e-commerce is revolutionizing business practices and reshaping traditional business transactions over “computer-mediated networks” (Schmitz et al., 2001). Although fairly well-established in developed countries, e-commerce in Caribbean developing countries remains in the early stages of development. Put it simply, given the peculiar set of social, economic, technical, and legal issues affecting these economies, e-commerce is viewed as a complex but challenging business issue. Admittedly, both local and regional businesses have realized that e-commerce can “accelerate economic development” (Schmitz et al., 2001) in their respective economies. As a result, they have hastily attempted to “leap-frog” into the global networked economy. Yet, several challenges remain to be faced by these businesses. This article is concerned specifically with Internet-based Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce, unlike other e-commerce forms, such as Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Government (B2G).