As we found in our recent report “Empowering People and Creating Opportunity in the Digital Single Market”, our data on Small-, Micro-, and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMMB) trading on eBay shows that technology is an immensely powerful tool allowing SMMBs to benefit from economic opportunity. To show how this new commerce is taking shape in all EU countries, our team has developed a new interactive map, which provides an easy way for users to study our country-specific data – ranging from digital density to export volumes, export destinations, and growth of technology-enabled exporters in each individual country.  For example, if you’ve ever wondered what the top product export categories of our Croatian sellers are or how many of our Swedish sellers export to more than four continents, you’ll be able to find out in the tool.

The trends of the ‘new commerce’ which are reflected in our data and the tool result from the way technology fundamentally changes commerce. The Internet, combined with digital commerce services, enables small businesses to take their operations from local to global, allowing them to significantly broaden their customer base, gain market share and improve their resilience. As our data shows, this is happening right now, at scale, throughout the EU. Research we have conducted together with economists from Sidley Austin LLP reveals how small business turn towards online marketplaces such as eBay to reach customers across Europe and globally. On average, SMMBs leveraging eBay in the EU serve consumers in 18 different countries annually. And this is not a phenomenon limited to large cities and prosperous areas. We find that exporting SMMBs are situated throughout Europe's regions, and their success is not dependent on traditionally preferred location.  eBay is proud to provide our SMMB customers with a platform and the tools they need to grow their businesses.