Future of Small Business E-Commerce

Abstract

The use of the Internet for business purposes among small businesses started quite early in the e-commerce evolution. In the beginning, innovative and entrepreneurial owners of small businesses attempted to use rudimentary Internet tools such as electronic mail (e-mail) and file transfer protocol (FTP) to exchange messages and documents. While primitive, it fulfilled much of the business needs at the time. Even to date, e-mail and document exchange, according to some of the latest research findings, are still the most commonly used tools despite the fact that tools themselves have become more sophisticated.