Although the recent failure of many dot.com companies and New Zealand ecommerce businesses ('tech wrecks') have caused leading industry authorities to downgrade their initially optimistic numbers, worldwide business-to-business ecommerce is still expected to climb to US$6.8 trillion by 2004. Closer to home, it is forecasted that in Australasia companies will conduct $235 billion worth of business by 2005, of which New Zealand ecommerce will make up $21 billion worth (Wetenhall, Sutherland & Boven, 2000).

However, there is some way to go. Research by Stephen Bowden et al ('Adoption and Implementation of E-Business in New Zealand') indicates that although New Zealanders are recognised for their quick uptake of new technologies, New Zealand businesses are in fact 'laggards' when it comes to ecommerce. More specifically, the study showed that by the numbers...

1. 92% of organisations sampled used a computer
2. 54% of organisations had a website
3. 21% of organisations had a website capable of taking orders
4. 8% of organisations could handle taking payments online

With respect to other New Zealand ecommerce activities:

1. 50% of organisations purchased supplies online
2. 33% of organisations were involved in financial transactions on a daily basis
3. 29% of organisations were linked to partners via an extranet

Despite the accusation of being slow on the uptake, a number of Kiwi businesses have demonstrated that innovation and Internet expertise are alive and well in New Zealand. Some examples....Today dairy farmers can log on to www.fencepost.com and access industry specific information such as commodity prices and buy agricultural equipment from a web-store. Alternatively, in the financial services industry, AMP have developed a New Zealand ecommerce site called Liquid, which is "New Zealand's first fully self-contained, independent online financial services broker".

As the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development put it "the message is simple. Ecommerce is big, it's global, it's growing rapidly, and it's here to stay".