Last week eBay Australia released the Opportunity Economy Report. Shared with key politicians in Canberra and beyond, the report measures optimism levels in the industry, attitudes towards emerging technologies, deep dives into perceived barriers to growth, export behaviors and, perhaps most importantly, a variety of Australian small and medium business (SMB) case studies.  Key findings include:

• Australian SMB’s selling online are more optimistic than Commonwealth counterparts despite concerns over the domestic economy, property costs and government bureaucracy .
• More than 70% of online-enabled Australian SMB’s are exporting, as compared to less an 5% of registered businesses in Australia, and that number jumps to 88% when you look at SMB’s leveraging eBay’s global marketplace.
• Nearly a quarter of regional businesses saw more than 40% of their sales come from overseas customers in the past 12 months, compared to just 2% of metro-based businesses.
• 70% of SMB’s say marketplaces like eBay are the key to competing against large retailers.
• There are now 2,100 eBay millionaires coming from 980 different Australian postcodes, which means eBay is currently creating 5 millionaires a week!

We highly recommend any Australian SMB not currently selling on a marketplace like eBay read this report. As always, we will continue to share this data with Australian legislators as we continue to promote and protect the rights of our Australian customers.