Usage barriers of e-commerce among small and medium enterprise in agro-based industry

Census on Establishment Small and Medium Enterprise 2005 indicate that overall performance of Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) is at great development.However it seems to be shortcoming on certain aspect in term of accessing the export market, lowered in technology application, and technology capability.The aim of this study is to get the current total of e-commerce usage among the native entrepreneur of SME in Ago-Based Industry (ABI) and to recognize barriers toward e-commerce usage.Furthermore, those barriers and primary activities are recognized through the past study result.The current data is acquired from distributed questionnaire to SME's that related to ABI in northern area of Kedah.The data is then analyzed to know the total of ecommerce usage and to recognize primary barrier of e-commerce usage of SME in ABI. As a result, this paper has figured out that e-commerce usage among the native entrepreneur of SME in ABI is at lower level.In particular, the primary barriers of e-commerce usage among native entrepreneur of SME ABI in the Northern area of Kedah include high cost, lack of skill and knowledge workers on Information Technology (IT), lack of demand from customers and suppliers to use e-commerce.The wish to provide useful information that can be used as guidance to Malaysia Government to develop strategic plan using e-commerce application in order to strengthen SMEs sector