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Describes how small businesses involved in e‐commerce may benchmark their performance against a number of critical success factors (CSFs). The proposed approach is based on a series of interviews carried out amongst small‐to‐medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) whose activities were judged to represent best practice in e‐commerce. Encourages an SME to analyse its own strengths and weaknesses on a continuing basis and to compare them with those of its competitors. The first step in this process is to identify the company’s attitude to growth. Next, the SME should establish a suitable generic strategy and decide on a set of objectives that support it. Finally, it should identify a set of relevant CSFs. Analysis of the KITE interviews identified 11 CSFs relevant to the competitive performance of SMEs entering the e‐commerce market. Further research currently being undertaken as part of a follow‐up study will be used to validate this approach.