Amazon is proud of our commitments to empowering small businesses across Europe, and our support for EU SMEs aligns with the goals of European SME Week, which is coordinated by the European Commission.
In 2023, the 127,000 SMEs selling on Amazon in the EU achieved more than €14 billion in export sales, demonstrating the power of e-commerce to help small businesses reach customers beyond their borders. These businesses have also created 350,000 jobs across the EU to support their online operations, contributing significantly to local economies.
We’re committed to strengthening the European Single Market and promoting SMEs’ competitiveness. We support harmonising rules across the EU to reduce complexity for businesses operating across borders including consistent product safety standards, simplified VAT procedures, and streamlined customs processes. By reducing regulatory fragmentation, it would be easier for SMEs to scale their operations and reach customers throughout the EU.
At Amazon we help SMEs grow, supporting their and the EU’s competitiveness. We do this through programmes like the Amazon Small Business Accelerator, an education tool to support any entrepreneur in building their business and developing digital skills to start selling both offline and online. Over 130,000 entrepreneurs have been trained in digital skills for free in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden over the last two years. We have invested in innovative sales tools for our European selling partners, offering high-tech logistics, cloud, and automation services, and helping them as they sell to millions of customers.
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Joanna Radomska, owner of E-wicker24, a family business dedicated to wicker, well-known for its wicker history in northeastern Poland. The company started selling on Amazon ten years ago and Joanna explains all the challenges they faced to understand the different administrative policies in each country they wanted to sell.
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Lucas Pinos, co-founder of Novoma, a food supplements French brand, emphasises that exporting to the EU was a game-changer the company, after previously selling only in France, but when labelling their products in Europe, Novoma must navigate ambiguity due a lack of harmonised standards.
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Maria Antonietta Orlando, business owner at Remo Sartori, represents the next generation in a long family tradition of producing ties, bow-ties, and scarves in southern Italy. accessed the SME Accelerator programme and it’s been a successful journey for her selling online so far. However, it’s still complex for Remo Sartori to export to other EU countries when they need to create VAT registrations in each member state, which is a high cost for a small company.
As European SME Week is celebrated, Amazon remains dedicated to fostering an environment where SMEs can grow, innovate, succeed, and be more competitive - contributing to a more dynamic and resilient EU economy. See the videos below detailing stories of SMEs across Europe, including their experiences selling online, how they started to export, and the barriers they still face when wanting to do business.
