Understanding the use of electronic commerce in the import process: Findings from the food and beverage industry

The use of electronic commerce in international business transactions has yet to be studied extensively. Compared to nationally-based electronic commerce, very few authors have empirically studied the extent of international electronic commerce. The objective of this paper is to develop a better and fuller understanding of the usage of electronic commerce among the numerous parties involved in an import process. This paper proposes an exploratory and in-depth case study of international e-commerce utilization by a large Canadian importer and distributor in the food and beverage industry. This firm recently implemented business-to-business electronic marketplaces to deal with its large portfolio of international suppliers. Extensive interviews were conducted with twenty key respondents of different parties involved in the different stages of the business process. The results of this case study show significant variance in the use of international electronic commerce by the different parties involved. Our results also clearly suggest that the importer’s purchasing power plays an important role in the adoption of the electronic marketplace by vendors The lack of power on the vendor’s part also appears to explain why very little electronic business is done between vendors and the insurance companies involved in the process. Another interesting result is the Canadian government’s leadership role in deploying electronic customs clearing mechanisms, which clearly affect the latter stages of the international business process.