The Online Platform, Trade, MSMEs and Women: Lessons from eBay towards user-driven economic empowerment
By Hanne Melin, Director and Head of eBay Public Policy Lab for Europe, Middle East and Africa
Learn more about this timely topic at the upcoming
Global Forum on Development on 5 April 2017.
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Irrespective of where in the world we look, we find micro and small businesses leveraging an online platform business strategy to engage in commerce on a global scale. That’s been the finding of the eBay Public Policy Lab and a team of economists at Sidley Austin LLP who have worked together since 2011 studying the trade patterns of enterprises using the eBay marketplace.
The economic opportunities cannot be overestimated.
Indeed, trade participation is linked to increased productivity and greater probability of firm survival. This, in turn, contributes to more prosperous communities. Nevertheless, micro and small firms remain underrepresented in world trade, despite them dominating most countries’ enterprise population. Moreover, developing countries’ role in world trade is still understated, not to mention the small firms in those countries.
