A conceptual framework of the success factors of e - commerce: a study of Bangladeshi female entrepreneurs

Numerous studies on e-commerce applications and female entrepreneurship have been conducted.F-commerce has gained popularity in both practice and research. However, most of thisresearch were undertaken in developed countries, with only a handful focusing on emergingmarkets such as Bangladesh. This restricts the attention to e-commerce applications, especially inBangladesh. Internet companies have experienced both success and failure. Femaleentrepreneurship is a matter of concern for all countries and they often face a greater burden inensuring that their businesses expand within the adverse market climate. As technologicaldevelopment helped the development of women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. So, the intention ofthis thesis research is to develop a framework of the success factors of e-commerce to achievecommercial sales or transactions for Bangladeshi women. Exploring success factors of ecommercewould be benefits and advantages for women as entrepreneurship and e-commerce playa crucial role in the fight against poverty and unemployment. Additionally, there is a lack ofattention on women entrepreneurs' issues and motives, but they focused primarily on the country'straditional business. Hence, to fill this gap in the online application, this research attempts to focuson hidden motivation and difficulties of online women entrepreneurs and,furthermore, forwards some suggestions to change women’s entrepreneurship in a developingcountry. Moreover, Bangladesh's e-commerce industry is still in its infancy, and there are somehurdles that limit market growth and make it tough for entrepreneurs to run their companies. So,the framework of the present research investigated the success factors of e-commerce but also risksin e-commerce and challenges of women entrepreneur in Bangladesh which is not found anyresearch previously in Bangladesh.The author reviewed the relevant literature on e-commerce and women entrepreneurship both inBangladesh and other developing countries. From the beginning of the literature review, the authorhas considered e-commerce success factors as a basis of F-commerce, which is a subgroup of ecommerce.There are no success factors of F-commerce found in Google Scholar, MendeleyReference Manager and Emerald Insight. The original plan for the study was to perform semistructured(or unstructured) interviews, but they are typically performed in face-to-faceenvironments. As a result of COVID-19, lockdowns and social distancing are currently changingthe way qualitative researchers collect data. So, the present research uses a virtual qualitative audiointerview-based approach to provide insights into the online entrepreneurial journeys of 20 womenin Dhaka, Chittagong and Narayangonj as they develop and manage their ventures while balancingprofessional and personal demands.According to the factor analysis, the study surprisingly revealed balance and push factors to havedominated pull factors to cause online entrepreneurship among women. The study found thatharassment in corporate job adds a new push factor in the body of knowledge, which was notpreviously found in the literature. The most effective constraints were due to genderdiscrimination, family-related conflicts, lack of e-commerce training, low priority given bybankers to provide loan to women entrepreneurs and lack of education due to early marriage. Thestudy revealed that finance is not a barrier to start platform-based businesses.The author revealed 11 success factors which is applicable to all companies of f-commerceventures from the start of women business. Here, customer satisfaction and trust are crucialfactors that add new success actors to the body of knowledge, which was not previously present inthe literature. Lack of trust, overt and direct dependence on the delivery companies, low level ofeducation and general knowledge on part of many sellers and consumers are the main obstaclesfor e-commerce growth in Bangladesh.As this data was directly collected from women business owners of Facebook-based businesses,this framework is appropriate for C2C models. Finally, the study has provided recommendationsfor enabling mechanisms for improving women entrepreneurship as well as developing ecommercegrowth and has also suggested areas for future research, limitations, and implications.