The Powering Small Business Britain report, given by PayPoint and YouGov, based on a survey on about 800 SMEs, reveals major changes happening in the UK business scene.
The summary of the report states that, online trading is playing an important role in providing benefits for SMEs, by improving their business operations and also acquiring new customers, which gives remarkable hope especially during the present economic recession. It is expected that, the European economy will be able to see a growth of £275 billion by 2011.
Going into the deatils of the report, till date 70% of UK population have made a purchase online. 31% of SMEs are already tradig online, while 27% have not yet made the move though aware of the importance. Further reports say that, 35% of the SMEs are expecting major share of their revenue from online sales, for the next five years and 58% predict increase in their turnover through online sales.
When asked about the drivers for success in online trade, the respondents cited, access to more customers (59%), access to global markets (36%), cost effectiveness and helping in bringing profitability quickly for new businesses, as the major reasons.
Apart from the above optimistic findings, there are some issues acting as a barriers for online trade. The respondents viewed possibility of fraud attacks (33%) and low possibility of customers finding them online (57%) as their major concerns of online trade.