The profile of microbusinesses and SME e-commerce managers in 2015

The large presence of companies specialising in e-commerce

The presence of e-commerce in the business sector is becoming more significant each year. In 2015, Oxatis, who carries out regular studies on the profiles and markets open to e-commerce, noticed a significant rise in average turnover in France of 14% within this sector, compared with 11.5% in 2014. This is the sign of a healthy and flourishing market that, thanks to the wide variety of marketing and advertising media, were able to create a new kind of business: e-commerce microbusiness-SMEs.

The importance of e-commerce in the business world

E-commerce businesses have effectively created a private sector that stands out for the profiles of its managers as well as for the way in which it works and sells compared to the classic entrepreneurial world.

Firstly, note the strong presence of women at the head of these new e-commerce companies: in 2015, 36% of business managers in this sector of the web were women, in comparison to an average of 25-30% female managers in so-called “classic” microbusinesses and SMEs.

Furthermore, e-commerce websites are being created in areas that, until now, used to be rather geographically or commercially ill-adapted to classic business: 56% of e-commerce specialists set up in urban ares with less than 20,000 inhabitants.

E-commerce, by virtue of its flourishing market, also greatly contributes to job creation. In 2015, 23,000 jobs were created in e-commerce. Managers of e-commerce microbusiness-SMEs foresee the creation of 37,550 new jobs in 2016.

In any case, e-commerce offers a new way of working: being more open to the rest of the world (55% of French e-commerce traders sell on the international market), but also being more sensitive to new marketing tools as well as the successful return of more traditional tools.

Why are advertising and marketing essential to e-commerce microbusinesses and SMEs?

E-commerce traders easily find their way towards B2B (selling between professionals), but they also use the online window into their society to create a new offline, physical customer base.
Thus, 63% of e-commerce managers have seen a positive impact of their online trade on their “real” or physical business: 49% of them noticed that their customer base was better informed, 54% experienced an increase in visits to their company or business and, finally, 63% saw an increase in their turnover.

It is precisely in this new economic context that Margy Consultants is offering online personalised marketing and advertising publishing in order to promote contact among professionals, but also direct marketing stemming from good e-commerce results. As e-commerce is indeed booming, marketing and sales relationships have developed both towards social networks and large distribution platforms as well as coming back to the “essentials” – the personalised advertising tools given as a gift by microbusinesses and SMEs.