**2. CSFs and E-commerce success**

#### **2.1. Using business satisfaction for evaluating e-commerce success**

In the literature, satisfaction is a very important element for a successful long-term relationship with e-commerce adoption/success [9]. Research highlighted that satisfaction rather than system use was adopted as an appropriate measure of e-commerce success [15]. Any unsatisfactory performance regarding this criterion could not be compensated for by better performance concerning one or more other criteria [16]. Satisfaction study is, therefore, being used widely for a better understanding of e-commerce success.

This research proposed that the term e-commerce business satisfaction (EBS) would be a better measure of e-commerce success where e-commerce satisfaction was discussed from a business perspective, which has been previously defined as 'the overall satisfaction that a business has with an e-commerce system meeting its requirements and expectations' [17].

### **2.2. Using CSFs for understanding EBS to evaluate e-commerce success**

The concept and approach of CSFs have been studied and applied successfully in a broad range of contexts in many areas of IS/IT research including identifying system needs [11, 18]. Research states that satisfaction with e-commerce is significantly affected by organisational determinant critical success factors (CSFs) [10].

Using a set of CSFs identified as one of the key implementation strategies employed in the context of performance analysis and strategic management, SMEs may focus on and manage the few key areas in the implementation process to measure their e-commerce systems, judge the efficacy of e-commerce systems, improve their e-commerce systems, and predict e-commerce usage, which could contribute to the success of these experiential-driven initiatives and help achieve a successful implementation outcome of e-commerce [14, 18–22]. Identifying CSFs that impact the adoption of e-commerce will also make it possible to assess its future growth [21].

Over the past decade, therefore, a large number of investigations have focused on determining what CSFs affected the adoption of e-commerce successfully [23, 24]. Despite the increasing work on e-commerce, however, the investigation indicated that there were still very few studies that attempted to investigate the effect of proposed CSFs on the implementation of e-commerce [18] and also lack of an integrated approach for the development of a well-established e-commerce CSFs model [25]. This research adopted the CSFs identified in previous work for understanding business satisfaction associated with e-commerce success.
