Small Business Enterprises (SBE's) do play a major role in the world economy, and they are recognized as one of the main contributors to economic, development and employment growth. According to Mulhern (1995) 99% of all European companies are small and medium sized (SME) and from 1985-1995 it provided 66% of the employment in Europe. That is also true in Less Developing Countries (LDC's) since small businesses do represent a high percentage of the total number of enterprises.
On the other hand, the revolution in information technology (IT) and communications changed the way people conduct business today. In recent years, increasing numbers of businesses have been using the Internet and other electronic media in their marketing efforts, giving the chance for Electronic marketing (as a new marketing phenomenon and philosophy) to grow in a very dramatic and dynamic way.
From the researcher point of view, implementing E-marketing by small business enterprise can change the shape and nature of SBE's business all over the world. Because the rapid proliferation of the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW) and electronic communication has created a fast growing new electronic channels for marketing. For that, the internet and other electronic media are playing now a very important role in conducting marketing activities due to its unique characteristics as a market and as a medium.
Depending on that the researcher is seeking to add to the body of knowledge by investigating and understanding the practices and activities of small business enterprises through conducting a research about the effect of implementing E-marketing on marketing performance of industrial and trade SBE's, it is a comparative study between the Egyptian and British SBE's to gain a better understanding of the SBE's role in developing countries since they are less well represented in the literature.