Cross-border trade a priority for MSMEs

As small and medium businesses in India learn to cope with changing market scenarios due to the ongoing pandemic, there has been a significant increase in their participation in online selling, social commerce and cross-border trade. As per a recent survey, 9 in 10 MSMEs say cross-border trade is a key area for business growth and 2 out of 3 MSMEs use social media as sales channel today.

The survey by PayPal India in partnership with Edelman Data and Intelligence, aims to understand how Indian MSMEs have adapted during the pandemic by adopting a digital-first approach while leveraging the global opportunity and their key priorities to scale up.

The MSME Digital Readiness Survey 2021 was conducted between October to November 2021. The respondent included small businesses and with 250 business decision markers of India’s SME with annual turnover ranging from Rs 5 crore to Rs 250 crore. The businesses show an average turnover of Rs 123 crore and an average employee size of 386 persons. The sample endorses a mix of industry, mainly comprising the services (36%), production (28%) and retail and hospitality (16%) sector.

The survey highlighted that after two years since Covid-19 hit the country, more than half of small businesses (52%) witnessed a positive impact on their business once economies began to reopen. In fact, 29% of the MSMEs found that the business environment in India became more favourable for online sales and for 31% the cross-border opportunity was promising.