The past 15 months have hit small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) hard. Mom-and-pop shops around the world have struggled to get by since March 2020, when mandated business closures and capacity restrictions as well as their resulting economic shocks brought the global economy to its...
Eighteen months ago, digital connectivity was an optional add-on for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It was nice to have, perhaps, but rarely considered a need to have. The local corner shop more likely than not didn’t have much of a digital presence for the...
Vodafone has rolled out “business boosting packages” in partnership with Wix, a website creation platform, according to a press release. The packages will give small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) a way to create an online presence or improve an existing online presence, the release stated....
FedEx has launched a program to help small- to medium-sized business (SMB) owners develop or expand their eCommerce operations in the wake of the pandemic, according to a press release. Formed in collaboration with nonprofit Accion Opportunity Fund (AOF), the FedEx E-Commerce Learning Lab is...
India’s retail market is a large and rapidly growing space, generating $793 billion in sales in the fiscal year ended March 2020 and is expected to generate $1.5 trillion by 2030, according to estimates reported by the Financial Times. And that retail market is unusual in...
Small businesses, particularly in the last year, have tended to draw a lot of superlatives and flowery descriptions like “the backbone of the economy,” or “innovation engines” and even, by those feeling particularly poetic, as the “heart and soul of our communities.” There is no...
The number of businesses that permanently closed during the first year of pandemic fell short of widespread concerns, Federal Reserve economists have concluded in a new report. “Relative to popular discussion, then, our results may represent an optimistic update to views about pandemic-related business failure,”...
For small firms in India, particularly up-and-coming players in the digital space, getting access to funding is a painful process. Until recently, their access to loans from private banks was limited, and bringing in equity funding from venture capital firms (VCs) and other investors is...
While COVID-19 gets a lot of credit for the radical restructuring of the retail environment, the reality is the digital restructuring of retail was already well underway when the pandemic period started. The headlines about the imminent death of the mall at the hands of...
