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eBay to invest $150K to support Puerto Rico’s micro, small and mid-sized businesses

As a result of the current coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, micro, small and medium businesses in Puerto Rico are facing unprecedented challenges, which puts their income and possibilities of sustaining their business in danger.

For this reason, today, eBay has launched “Mi Negocio 24/7 en eBay,” an acceleration program that will allow Puerto Rican businesses to open a free store on the platform and have access to exclusive benefits to start exporting its products to different parts of the world.  

“For the past 25 years, eBay has helped develop hundreds of thousands of small businesses around the world and now, due to this unprecedented situation, we created “Mi Negocio 24/7 en eBay so that companies in Puerto Rico can set up their online store quickly and with the necessary assistance, reaching up to 174 million buyers in 190 markets,” said Xavier Aguirre, senior business development manager for eBay in Latin America.

“For eBay, Puerto Rico is a very important market in the region due to its potential and the active sellers that currently export from the island,” he said. “Our mission is to connect buyers and sellers from around the world to create business opportunities, and that is exactly what we must do now, more than ever.”

While Aguirre could not share exact number of sellers on the island, he said the number of participants in Puerto Rico has had a double-digit growth percentage in the last two years.

“The categories that Puerto Ricans export the most on eBay are auto parts, cell phones and smartphones, men’s shoes, watches, video games, vitamins and minerals, consoles, digital cameras and accessories for men,” he said.

“The countries to which the Puerto Rican sellers on eBay mainly export are Canada, Singapore, China and obviously the U.S. mainland,” said Aguirre.

He said the goal of the new initiative is to get at least 100 Puerto Rican businesses to join the platform “and begin to present their products to the world and become part of the global economy.”

The curfew and the closing of non-essential businesses especially affected micro, small and medium size companies in Puerto Rico. So, eBay “has made the necessary moves to offer benefits and special support to new sellers who currently cannot keep their physical businesses running,” he said.

The program seeks to accelerate the transition to the digital space and make it as fluid and simple as possible, he added.

“Mi Negocio 24/7 en eBay” will offer the following benefits to users:

  • Business development program: Businesses that have more than 100 products to export will be able to apply for the program through this form and upon receiving confirmation, they will receive support from eBay throughout the rest of the process.
  • eBay Premium or Super Stores at no cost: eBay will provide the best suited store classification level — such as Premium or Super — for the requesting business. These stores will have no cost during the first three months and will be able to publish between 1,000 and 10,000 advertisements.
  • Personal manager for business development: Businesses will have access to a personal manager who will work hand in hand with sellers to support them in exporting via eBay in the most efficient way.
  • Training program: eBay will provide a special training program for sellers to learn all the platform’s characteristics and the details within each of the sales steps, from creating their account and uploading inventory, to communicating with buyers.
  • Additional ads at no cost: New and existing eBay sellers who own a store will be able to advertise 50,000 additional items for free until the end of July 2020.

Puerto Rican businesses interested in being part of the “Mi Negocio 24/7 en eBay” program and benefiting from the support it is offering, must access and complete the registration form that will be available until July 31st, 2020.

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This story was written by our staff based on a press release.
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