The past decade has seen a ‘push’ by governments for small businesses to adopt and use e-commerce technologies. Part of many of these government initiatives has been for small businesses to form clusters or strategic alliances prior to adopting e-commerce so that they can compete with larger businesses. This study compares the adoption of e-commerce by small businesses that are part of an alliance with those that are not connected to any form of alliance. Two locations were investigated, Sweden and Aus-tralia. The results, which should be useful both to small business ow-ner/managers and relevant government agencies, show that while differences do exist, they are far from universal.