Small Business and eCommerce
18 March 2010
A new survey by Paypoint and the IMRG has highlighted the importance and significance of ecommerce and online to the UK's small business sector. Often ignored by the larger level surveys, it focusses exclusively on SMEs and surveyed around 800 small businesses.
With the small businesses sector making up 99% of all UK businesses and employing 58.9% of the working population, organisations who target this sector successfully with a range of web and online products have a huge commercial opportunity - not least because approx. 1.5M UK SMEs do not have a web site.
So what were the headline findings:
- More customers, greater profits – 59% of UK small business managers think that the main benefit of trading online is that they have greater reach and, therefore, more customers.
- eCommerce success – for 31% of British small businesses, revenues are delivered entirely through online trading ; ecommerce is integral to their operations
- Growing reliance on online revenues – 27% see ecommerce as the future for their business but have not yet made it central to their commercial activity
- Flexible business model – 40% acknowledge its importance
- Operating in a global marketplace – 36% of British entrepreneurs believe that the main benefit of online trade is being able to trade in a global market
- Driving cost efficiency – 34% believe that their business is more profitable due to the cost efficiency of e‐commerce
- Lower overheads – 22% have made their operations leaner with reduced staffing
- Increased reach and more revenues – in addition, 17% have found new and lucrative markets
Read more of the report on eCommerce for Small Business
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