Abstract:

The World Wide Web has emerged as a promising medium for electronic commerce and thousands of organizations have set up commercial websites to do business over Internet. In this context, providing guidelines for deploying efficient commercial websites can be advantageous for these organizations. The present Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)-based research investigates the functional requirements that help optimize the design of commercial websites used for electronic procurement (e-procurement).  The data were collected from 88 corporate buyers from over 85 organizations operating in a wide range of industries and using the World Wide Web to support the procurement process. The results suggest that adding advanced functionalities to informational websites reduces their efficiency.