Publisher's Synopsis
The results of the case study could help current or new entrepreneurs to standardize procedures for overcoming barriers, maximize revenue, financial prosperity, and sustain competitive advantages. Recommendations resulting from this study included the following: aiming to improve profitability, joining an online barrier reducing associations, standardizing procedures, conducting periodic risk assessments, cataloging the internal controls for preventing barriers, indexing the methods for eliminating barriers, creating directory of online businesses, and distributing the directory to houses in United States. Entrepreneurs of small brick-and-mortar businesses have shown a greater interest in using the Inter-net to expand small business profitability; but they lacked adequate procedures and risk assessments to mitigate barriers. This was because intense competition among sellers, places small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that had gone online in the last five years at a disadvantage. The problem explored in this holistic multiple-case study was that adequate procedures and risk assessments for barriers had not been implement-ed to eliminate the barrier of aggressive rivalry of sellers, which may impede the sustainable advantages for SMEs which had gone online since 2006. This study was informed by the niche strategies of the Porter's theoretical framework. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether procedures, risk assessments and business strategies could create sustain-able advantages for people and SMEs that had gone online since 2006. A purposive sample of 20 online SMEs from multiple market segments was selected to inform the study.
