E-commerce adoption in China's service SMEs : a study from web usability perspective

Although China's economy continues to grow rapidly over the last decade, some researchers have been aware that China has had to develop its service sector if China wants to sustain this growth. However, researches on the electronic commerce (e-commerce) adoption in China's service industries are still lacking and are limited so far. In literature review, few works discuss e-commerce adoption by measuring web site usability / web usability. This paper reviews the research on China's small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and highlights the challenges for developing and adopting e-commerce in China's service SMEs. This research surveyed 494 of China's service SME websites, and found that (1) most of China's service SMEs are still at the early stage of adopting e-commerce; (2) there is an obvious e-commerce divide between Eastern China and Western China; (3) there is an existing positive relation between GDP per person and e-commerce adoption. This paper suggests that there is a need to select more sampling cities and make further research for justifying the above findings. Finally, this research concludes that web usability is the core of e- commerce adoption, and recommends the promotion of web usability as an effective strategy in further strategic development for China's service SMEs adopting e-commerce. This research believes that China's service sector adopting e-commerce might promote them up to the global level and stay competitive, which might further benefit the growth of China's economy immensely.