E-business benefit both large and small businesses. However, the aggregate cost of successful online trading, including initial and recurring costs, continues to pose a great challenge to micro-enterprises. For these willing businesses, the result is a mere web presence and for some, the thought of trading online is a no-go area. Using a multi-case study qualitative approach, this study adopts the technology-organisation-environment theoretical lens to explore empirically the strategies used by e-retail microbusinesses to potentially advance their e-business adoption. The findings revealed the actual cost of adoption, the technology-organisation-environment strategies in use to lower the cost barrier, and how the pursuit of the cost barrier simultaneously lowers some adoption barriers outside the cost factors. The study also highlighted the intrinsic idiosyncratic nature of small firms’ ecosystems, and the fact that government resources and services provided by companies, both private and public, could effectively reduce the costs associated with e-business adoption.

电子商务对大型和小型企业均有利。但是，成功的在线交易的总成本，包括初始和经常性成本，仍然对微型企业构成巨大挑战。对于这些愿意做的业务，结果只是一个网络存在，而对于某些人来说，在线交易的想法是一个禁区。本研究采用多案例研究定性方法，采用技术-组织-环境理论的视角，从经验上探索电子零售微企业使用的策略，以潜在地促进其电子商务的采用。调查结果揭示了采用的实际成本，正在使用的技术组织环境战略以降低成本壁垒，以及追求成本壁垒如何同时降低成本因素之外的某些采用壁垒。