Today (22 March) the first E-Commerce Week comes to a close. The campaign – designed to ‘put the ease into e-commerce’ – was launched by the E-Commerce Trade Commission (ECT-C) to support its aim of encouraging more small businesses to trade internationally.
The Commission was convened in June 2023 by the Institute of Export & International Trade (IOE&IT), following a report from the Social Market Foundation that found 70,000 small businesses that could be trading internationally, are not. It estimated the potential gain to the UK economy at £9.3bn if they were to start trading.
The week included two educational webinars for SMEs hosted by IOE&IT, the commission’s third evidence session to gain industry insight, as well as a meeting with Business Sweden to collaborate on e-commerce solutions to boost bilateral trade.
Reflecting on the week, IOE&IT UK Public Affairs Lead, Grace Thompson, said:
“E-Commerce Week has been a great time to reflect on the value of e-commerce trade, both for businesses and consumers alike.
“The potential that e-commerce trade has to support the growth of small businesses is huge and this is why we created a campaign week which looked to inspire and educate businesses in taking their first steps with e-commerce trade”.
Growing your business
The week’s first webinar tackled how small businesses can use e-commerce to grow internationally, with advice from entrepreneurs who have succeeded using online platforms.
This included Fraser Smeaton co-founder of fancy dress retailer Morphsuits and Barry Tong, founder of e-commerce business Stephenson’s Online. They offered insights into how they built their businesses using e-commerce. This ranged from being experimental and embracing small mistakes in the early stages to ensuring the customer’s needs are always at the fore.
IOE&IT’s customs consultant Samantha Hodgkins explained the fundamentals of exporting from a customs perspective, underlining how all organisations, even those that plan to outsource their trade and customs, need an understanding of the basics.
While Kostas Rossoglou, director of international public policy and government affairs at Shopify and an ECT-C board member, highlighted key technology trends in the sector. In particular, he spoke of the increasing value of social commerce, with social media channels increasingly also becoming e-commerce marketplaces.
Social value
In the week’s second webinar, experts suggested that increasing online sales could boost their social impact.
Renee Parker, advisory board member for the British Beauty Council, noted the impact of cosmetics themselves, which can “support our mental health, our hygiene and positive self-reflection”, while also highlighting the increasing amount of revenue generated by online sales.
This was complemented by input from IOE&IT trade strategy and projects specialist Karen Holden and the head of business engagement at the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), Michael Kearney, who both flagged the need to balance this with the need for strong consumer protections and to ensure the same standards are upheld online as they would be in ‘bricks and mortar’ shops.
Evidence session
The week also marked the ECT-C’s third regional evidence session, which took place in Belfast on Wednesday (20 March). Previous sessions have been held in Edinburgh and Cardiff.
Hosted in the Department for Business and Trade NI offices and supported by Invest Northern Ireland, the event heard from small businesses on the barriers they face when using e-commerce to sell across borders.
Paul Brooks, IOE&IT’s head of UK nations and regions team, and UK manufacturing lead, chaired the session. He described it as a “insightful and extremely positive” and said it was “great to engage with businesses passionate about e-commerce, ready to discuss and debate the topic”.
Insights gained from attendees across all sessions will be used to inform a policy paper, with the aspiration of guiding the direction of future government support.
Business Sweden
There was also inter-organisation collaboration as Business Sweden met with IOE&IT to discuss the ECT-C and gain insight into how best to support Swedish companies exporting to the UK.
Both organisations shared the export barriers their respective members faced when it comes to UK-Swedish bilateral trade and considered prospective solutions, drawing on existing ECT-C initiatives.
Having led the session, Thompson said:
“It was amazing to see the excitement in the room from both our organisations about supporting more Swedish businesses to export to the UK and more UK businesses to export to Sweden.
“We know that e-commerce also plays a major role in this, and that Sweden has particular strengths in the e-commerce field. Both sides took learnings from the other and it was a delight to be able to talk about the work of the Commission – particularly during E-Commerce Week itself.”
Parliamentary approval
Lord Offord, minister for exports at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) celebrated the success of the week.
To highlight the value that e-commerce can create he visited iconic tea British brand Whittard of Chelsea, which has used online sales to boost its presence in 40 global markets with 20% of its revenue derived from exports to the US, EU, Taiwan, South Korea and China.
He praised the work of the ECT-C and IOE&IT for “inspiring more small businesses to export” and believes the initiative is helping the UK to make progress towards the DBT target of hitting £1trn in exports by 2030.