Abstract:
Today, Women empowerment through women entrepreneurship is a common feature in most
developing countries. It plays a major role in poverty eradication and economic growth.
Unfortunately, in the Sri Lankan context the women-led online SMEs face number of constraints that
impede their sustainable growth. This paper aims to investigate the current context of online SMEs
led by women, challenges they encounter, future prospects, and directing policymakers towards
effective policy implications in this regard. Data was collected using the snowball sampling method.
Qualitative methods such as semi-structured interview questionnaires focus group discussions were
used to collect primary data. Findings related to their motivation, approach, and creativity into
business, competition, marketing methods are significant to novel comers and policymakers to design
an effective policy background. Further, they encounter several challenges due to gender disparities,
lack of financial support, and the legal system. The capacity development programs through the
public-private partnerships are highlighted along with the provision of financial support under the
lower interest rates that need to be encouraged. The article emphasizes how they have achieved
national and international markets through a lower amount of capital and labor and it‟s an eye-opener
for the whole economy to tap the untapped potential for growth. Inadequacy of precise secondary
data was an obstacle in generalizing the results to the whole economy. The selection of the western
province and the southern province as the sample have been done after an online survey. E-
Commerce is a resource that can be spreader all over the country by giving proper guidance and
training which leads to enhance the standard of living. Future research studies can be conducted upon
shedding light on the designing procedure of Private-public partnership in capacity development and
learning by comparison with other countries in the region who have gained successful impacts on
their way towards sustainable economic growth
Keywords: Online businesses; SME; Women empowerment; Women entrepreneurs
