An empirical study of the adoption and diffusion of electronic commerce in the car industry in Western Australia

This paper reports on qualitative case study research into the effects and impacts, and hence the adoption and diffusion of e-commerce in the car industry in Western Australia. To date, car dealers are typically not particularly internet savvy, and thus the advent of internet-based business is offering opportunities to them, but is also causing some anxiety. Aggregators who, by pooling dealer content onto one web site, offer a relatively simple, relatively low cost way of getting onto the internet are helping many of the car dealers to develop an active presence on the web. But generally speaking, internal business processes are not being changed to accommodate the new way of doing business, and there is great uncertainty as to how significant the impact of the internet will be on their business into the future. Few dealers were willing not to be involved on the internet because of their fear of being left behind. However, at present, relatively few are seeing an appreciable impact on their business because of their web presence