We’re half way through Global Entrepreneurship Week and in the UK the theme is very much “Go Global” with events led by Enterprise Nation in partnership with Alibaba.
On Tuesday there was a full day conference and without exception every speaker talked about the opportunities of trading globally rather than relying purely on the UK market. With the Eurozone in trouble trading further afield is proving profitable across the board.
Countries like Australia and the USA where the recession isn’t biting as hard as in the Eurozone are popular trading partners as they speak English, but countries such as the Far East are also keen to buy European goods and have cash to spend.
Going Global has never been easier for eBay and Amazon sellers. Tomorrow I’ll be talking at the Global Entrepreneurship Week Go Global day of workshops talking about how to use Amazon and eBay to sell internationally. If you’re in London it would be great to see you there, but if not talk to Amazon about EU selling accounts and on eBay make sure you add International shipping to your fixed price listings for them to appear on the eBay International Marketplace.
The government has announced a series of initiatives to encourage entrepreneurs which were welcomed by eBay, but they pointed out that they do little to foster cross border trade. Angus McCarey, UK Retail Director for eBay explained “We welcome the Government’s investment in online resources and services, as announced as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. But more needs to be done to make it easier for global entrepreneurs to engage in cross-border trade. Online businesses in Europe should not have to contend with 27 different consumer protection regimes“.
The government announced £1.2m funding for 10,000 small business mentors thought the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative, and a new service “My New Business” though Business Link. The new relaunched Business Link website now offers services tailored for start ups with the “My New Business” site and “Looking to Grow and Improve“.
As normal though much of the government “help” misses the mark for most small businesses. There’s no help with taxation, being an employer or cross border trade, plus much of the help is aimed at businesses much bigger than the normal online trader who often only have between 1 and 5 staff. That means you’re on your own to grow your business and trading internationally and especially outside the Eurozone could be the single biggest factor to growing your business over the course of the next year.
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Dave Cameron said before the election that he would help small businesses especially making it easier for people with home based businesses working from home. Hopefully be will keep his promise, I’ll give these websites a look at later on, but I would have thought gaining traffic from Google would help any business grow globally.