The International In-House Counsel Journal, the world’s leading independent journal written exclusively by commercial lawyers, has published an article authored by Hanne Melin, eBay Director of Global Public Policy, titled, “Platform-Enabled Commerce: Unlocking Economic Opportunity Through Independent Internationalization of Small Enterprises”. This article argues that the online commerce platform empowers the very smallest of businesses to perform like large companies despite them lacking comparable in-house experience, expertise and resources. 

The starting point is a European Commission report revealing how companies of different sizes attempted to rebalance their export destinations in response to the significant relative decrease in export opportunities within Europe due to the recent economic and financial crisis. It showed that all size classes of European exporters attempted to expand their extra-EU exporting relative to intra-EU exports as demand from outside of Europe grew more rapidly relative to demand from within Europe. All size classes of business achieved a rebalancing in favor of more pronounced extra-EU exports. However, the largest businesses were more adaptable and flexible. 

The article then presents research by the eBay Public Policy Lab which replicates the Commission’s study applying it to eBay-based small businesses in Europe. This research finds that they showed the strongest rebalancing of export destinations: they exceeded even the rate of rebalancing toward extra-EU exports of the largest European businesses, and they were considerably more adaptable than the general classes of small business exporters. Government export-support programs should take this learning into account. The article therefore concludes by recommending partnerships between towns or regions, the local businesses and online commerce platform providers to bring platform-based exporting to local micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.