The result of a recent study by World SME Forum highlighted the importance of promoting cross border e-commerce platforms and logistics fulfilment services to connect with overseas market opportunities (Sahbaz, 2017). The research result also shows that cross border e-commerce brings the benefits of higher productivity and better revenue and innovation to SMEs as they are exposed to competition, best business practice and advanced technologies (Sahbaz, 2017).
The conceptual framework of this research is based on a new model of small and medium size enterprises (SME) exporting developed by the eBay Public Policy Lab research team. The four key building blocks in this new model of SME exporting include:
Connectivity to the global Internet at lost cost and without gatekeepers
Global platform-based marketing, marketplace and payment services
Efficient, modern and “connected” package-level logistics and delivery services
Legal, regulatory and public policy framework supporting direct SME to consumer global commerce (eBay Public Policy Lab, 2016)