International e-commerce for fashion products: what is the relationship with performance?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the adoption of e-commerce improves company business, innovation and operational performance and whether sales internationalisation might moderate this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The research is based on a survey within the fashion industry and a multi-step linear regression model investigating the relationships between e-commerce and performance. Findings: Results reveal that e-commerce improves innovation performance but has no significant relationship with business and operational performance. Also investigating whether the sales internationalisation might moderate the relationship between e-commerce and performance, the findings reveal that the adoption of these tools might even be negative when applied at the international level in particular by considering innovation operational practices, and the research suggests for fashion companies the necessity to develop strong markets’ knowledge and brand awareness among foreign markets and customers before investing internationally. Originality/value: This paper offers an original analytical approach to identifying the relationships between a company’s adoption of e-commerce, performance and internationalisation within the fashion industry.