A lack of relevant skills is slowing the growth of ecommerce among smaller businesses, says a survey of nearly 19,000 firms published this week.
Only 18 per cent of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sell online, and just 20 per cent buy goods over the internet, according to the biennial Barriers to Growth report from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
Most SMEs generate less than 10 per cent of their sales online, and less than one per cent of firms are purely web-based.
The main barriers to ecommerce are perceived irrelevance, cost, the risk of fraud and lack of skills, says the FSB.
Nearly one in five respondents cited a lack of IT skills among staff as a barrier to growth and nine per cent said it was hard to find reliable external advice.
FSB national IT chairman Peter Scargill says training is slow to catch up with IT advances and smaller firms have difficulties ensuring technical staff have the right skills.
‘Getting a web site was never really that complicated, but moving to ecommerce is a major step. All sorts of people are needed and there is often no way to ensure they have the right skills for the job,’ said Scargill.
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