Online business networking experience research on ecommerce entrepreneurs

In a globalized economy, marketing performance is needed in order to be competitive and also for being successful on the market. Currently entrepreneurs have access to a big variety of tools and also the increase of networking platforms can help ecommerce entrepreneurs to gather a lot of useful information and know-how for improving their businesses. Our main objective is to identify which are the most important needs of ecommerce entrepreneurs in order to communicate with other business owners activating in the ecommerce industry. The secondary objective is to identify what features an online networking platform should have, so it can become an important tool for growing the marketing performance of each member using the networking platform. The research was made using a focus group composed of 15 participants. All participants are business owners who manage at least one online store, selling goods in the local or international market for at least 3 years. The results of the qualitative research made, were that entrepreneurs who are trying to establish a new business partnership, use classical forms of communication, such as email, phone calls, meetings but they believe that online communication would be beneficial for their business because it can be less time consuming and more efficient for finding new business partners or relevant know-how. We discovered that entrepreneurs wish to learn from the practical experience of other business owners to improve the marketing performance through innovation and creativity. The research conducted has identified the key elements of a business networking platform for entrepreneurs. The main elements required include privacy, security, sharing relevant know-how and elements that can create an efficient collaborative environment. We also discovered that local entrepreneurs do not use or know a business networking platform that meets their demands and expectations for sustaining an effective business development.