E-commerce has been cited as being particularly important for the Australian retail industry. The Australian Centre for Retail Studies has stated: "Electronic commerce is widely regarded as one of the most important forces of change shaping the retail industry around the world. Retailing is likely to be impacted by e-commerce more than most other sectors of the economy because of the position that retailers occupy as the interface between product suppliers and end customers. As well as within their own operations, e-commerce has the potential to impact on retailers' relationships with their suppliers and customers." (Australian Centre for Retail Studies, 1999) The experience of the project described in this paper suggests that there is a gap between the rhetoric relating to the take-up of e-commerce and the reality of the business place and a significant difference between organisations such as the Centre for Retial Studies and retailers about the preferred style of relationship between retailers and customers. While governments in Australia continually promote and support the take-up of e-commerce, SMEs are slow to accept it even though they support it in principle. Further, the retailers in this study clearly indicated that they believed that personal relationships between retailer and customer could not be achieved via e-commerce. The gap between rhetoric and reality also applies to customers who may have high levels of internet access, support e-commerce in principle, but have a high level of reluctance to buy products or pay bills online. This gap between rhetoric and reality exists in spite of significant government funding for internet education of both the public and business and in spite of repeated warnings that Australia must transform itself into a "new" online economy if it is to retain its place in OECD rankings. The outcomes of the Manningham Online suggests that significant research needs to be done to investigate and develop more effective strategies for encouraging e-commerce take-up.
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