Export marketing and the Internet

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Abstract
A survey of the characteristics and experiences of 148 UK exporting businesses which possessed sites on the World Wide Web was completed and respondents’ perceptions of the contributions of Internet use to their firms’ export marketing efforts assessed. Another group of exporters ‐ comparable to the initial sample in terms of firm size and product/ industry sector but without Web sites ‐ was also surveyed in an attempt to establish their reasons for not using the Web. All respondents were questioned about the major barriers they regarded as constraining the export activities of their firms. Five significant clusters of export barrier variables emerged (psychic distance, practical export problems, resource constraints, trade restrictions and market risk) matching closely variables suggested by previous research in the export marketing field. A logit regression was undertaken to appraise the plausibility of explaining whether an exporting business would operate a Web site. This used degree of IT competence, employment of foreign agents, and respondent executives’ cost consciousness and sense of psychic distance from foreign markets as independent variables.

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