The Effect of E-commerce capabilities on the competitive advantage of retail, and hotels and restaurants in the National Capital Region of the Philippines

The rapid increase of internet users had presented opportunity for firms to expand their market. Hence, the existence of e-commerce. At present day, more and more companies are engaging in e-commerce. As to that, this study investigated, through a 7-point Likert scale survey, on different companies from the Retail, and Hotel and Restaurant industries on how e-commerce affects their competitive advantage.Of all four e-commerce capabilities, Trust Building has proven to have the highest indicator of the three measures of competitive advantage while Web Content has the most significant effect to a measure of competitive advantage. The rationale for this outcome is that trust is the cornerstone of the attainment of alliance, cost reduction and innovation while the amount of information available on the Web site has a big impact on the attainment of differentiation. When a company attains a resilient trust with its clients, they are able to attain close ties with business partners, reduce cost in marketing and other overhead expenses and utilize the trust of their patrons by providing innovative and distinguishing goods and services. Meanwhile, the other two computer capabilities, Computer Competence and Web Security should not be taken for granted. Each of them, though not as strong as Trust Building, has significant effect on the measures of competitive advantage. Computer Competence, for example, has significant influence on Alliance and Cost Reduction and Web Security considerably affects Alliance and Cost Reduction. Thus, companies should set their goals in attaining all of these e-commerce capabilities for them to maintain position in the industry.