Britain’s online small businesses are showing resilience and optimism despite wider economic challenges, with nearly four in five confident they will grow in the next 12 months, according to new research from eBay UK.
The study, which surveyed 1,000 small firms selling via ecommerce platforms, found that 78 per cent expect growth in the year ahead. The main drivers of optimism included strong consumer demand (30 per cent), the adoption of new selling tools and AI innovation (20 per cent), improved support from ecommerce platforms (17 per cent) and stabilising economic conditions such as interest rates (16 per cent).
Small businesses are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence into their operations. Almost seven in ten respondents described themselves as excited (43 per cent) or curious (26 per cent) about AI’s potential. Already, 31 per cent are using it to save time on admin and content creation, while 27 per cent are deploying it to list products faster, test new product ideas, and reach more customers.
Despite the confidence, online sellers continue to face significant hurdles. The most cited barriers to growth were the wider UK economic climate (37 per cent), time constraints (30 per cent), access to funding (24 per cent), low business confidence (24 per cent) and administrative complexity (20 per cent).
Support authors and subscribe to content
This is premium stuff. Subscribe to read the entire article.
