| Electronic commerce (EC) is a new opportunity in Information Systems (IS) and is affecting how business is being conducted now as well as how it will be conducted in the future. Companies are currently following the leader when it comes to developing EC but they do not necessarily know what makes EC a successful business endeavor.;According to Shaw, et al. (1997) for businesses to compete more effectively, must be adopted into the business environment. The present research utilizes an EC application, supply chain management (SCM), to determine whether systems using EC are successful, and if they are, what factors determine EC success. The study begins by identifying the potential success factors for EC in a model. Through a combination of the IT success models and SCM, a model for electronic commerce success, using supply chain management, is developed and tested. Multivariate analysis of variance, Kruskal Wallis, and the z-stastic are used to determine whether differences exist for products using an electronic SC compared to products using a non-electronic SC. In operationalizing the model to evaluate EC success (effectiveness), inventory (historical) data for specific products is employed.;The present study indicates that differences do exist between products using electronic SCs and products using non-electronic SCs. Electronic SCs consistently show advantages over non-electronic SCs. Specifically, electronic SC products have (1) lower inventory levels, (2) lower inventory carrying costs, (3) fewer stockouts, (4) shorter order cycles, (5) lower prices (costs), and (6) greater availability of the products to the customers, as compared to non-electronic SCs. Non-electronic SC products are found to have lower prices to the end consumers than electronic SC products. Fill rate is not found to have a difference between electronic SCs and non-electronic Scs. Therefore, organizations can use these measures to justify the implementation of EC systems, and as dimensions of EC success.;Identifying EC success measures is an important area of IS research given money and time spent on EC systems. Through the continued work in this area, researchers will be able to identify the true EC success measures and the causal relationships between them. |
