The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs says that over half a million businesses are registered in rural areas across England alone, of which 88% are microbusinesses and 10% are small businesses. In turn, our SME Growth Tracker found this quarter that rural SMEs who use e-commerce expect their revenue derived from digital channels will increase by +1.9 per cent over the next 12 months – a stronger forecast than the +1.7% predicted by UK SMEs overall.
The growth potential from e-commerce for rural SMEs is significant. That’s why we’ve partnered with the Federation of Small Businesses to run a free Amazon Academy webinar on Thursday 7th September, providing advice and guidance to rural SMEs on how to sell on Amazon to boost their revenue and exports.
The webinar will be broadcast on 1pm-2pm BST, with presentations from Will Black, FSB's Senior policy advisor for infrastructure and rural affairs; Simon Donegan, Senior Manager, Merchant Services, Amazon; and Karen Riddick, founder of Second Nature.
To join the webinar for free register here.
