Read eBay’s Louisiana Small Online Business Inclusive Growth Report to gain insights into the trade and growth of eBay-enabled small businesses in Louisiana and the US. The report includes an analysis of new enterprise formation on eBay compared to the traditional economy across Louisiana’s 64 parishes based on their economic vitality from 2011 to 2016.
This paper compares the contribution by regions to net enterprise growth in the traditional economy with the online platform-enabled economy for the UK and Germany from 2010 to 2015. Our study shows that the growth in eBay-enabled firms is more evenly spread across regions in both countries. We also find it to be less concentrated to regions with high GDP per capita levels than traditional enterprise growth. In short, more regions and more poor regions are able to contribute to total enterprise growth in the platform-enabled economy than in the traditional economy. Our findings point to the online platform model being a powerful tool for driving more inclusive and broader participation in entrepreneurial activity and for expanding access to economic opportunities throughout a country. We believe that this should be reflected in national policies and actions aimed at promoting regional and rural development.
This report describes how the online platform model for commerce reduces the costs of doing business over distance and thereby allows small businesses throughout Germany to extend their market reach. Indeed, almost all small firms leveraging the eBay Marketplace in Germany are international, they served customers in on average 18 different countries in 2016, and they operated from almost anywhere in the country. The research presented in this report shows that the online platform model of commerce has the potential to support inclusive growth by micro and small enterprises, to promote regional inclusion, and to enable self-employment.
This report argues for the crafting of public policies that recognize how small enterprises (1) do not invest directly in new “ target markets” but (2) leverage the internet and platforms to reach customers in global markets and then (3) serve those customers remotely without any facilities in the consumers’ jurisdictions while (4) remaining independent.
To that end, the report presents robust data that demonstrate the real-world behavior of platform-enabled enterprises across the EU; puts forward recommendations for policy action at the EU level, proposing an agenda for the forthcoming mandate of the European Commission; and introduces an innovative modeling tool to help guide EU policy prioritization. This is a tool for analyzing how EU regions are equipped to support online commerce enterprise activity. For the purposes of this report, we have applied the modeling tool to Bulgaria, France, Germany, Romania, Spain and the UK, home to the six entrepreneurs featured in the report. We have used the tool to identify what type of policy actions would have the greatest impact across those countries and then measure the potential regional impact should such policy actions be carried out.
Our hope is that this report and the policy modeling tool can help promote the growth of small, independent yet global enterprises throughout the EU, inspire a new policy mindset, and speed up a transition to the next paradigm where more individuals and enterprises in more places benefit from technology and globalization.