After a study with striking conclusions and two years of work, the ministry now called the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise has revealed the tool it plans to use to lift the low level of digital adoption among small businesses in Spain. The platform, simply put, is a webpage called ‘Connected Commerce.’ It will let these businesses learn for free, understand their options, find suppliers and tools tailored to their needs, and connect with other shops facing the same challenges, among other features.
Funded with Next Generation funds and developed in collaboration with NTT Data, M Insight and Alten, the Connected Commerce platform centers on three pillars, as explained by the Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Méndez: support for small and medium enterprises through information, training, and business strategies to improve competitiveness; a closer, bidirectional administration; and the creation of communities and forums. She noted that the project grew out of a 2021 study conducted by the Autonomous University of Madrid.
That study found there are 435,000 retail businesses in Spain, with 98% being micro or very small enterprises (ten or fewer employees), and among these, half have no employees at all. Of the total, nearly eight in ten had internet connectivity at the time, but fewer than one third had a website and less than 5% enabled online ordering.
Two years later, internet-connected businesses rose slightly, yet the share with a website remains around 30%, small retailers offering reservations or orders advanced only two percentage points to 7%, and only 4% could actually fulfill these orders online.
Specific Proposals
“Thus we know the challenge remains,” Méndez asserted. “In an era where speed and the ability to adapt to new technologies and changing conditions determine whether a business survives, grows, and builds resilience and competitiveness, retail cannot be an exception. It is important to address this efficiently and together.”
According to a user manual for the platform available on the site, and as remarked by the Deputy General Director for International Trade in Services and Digital Commerce, María Aparici, the proposal includes, among other elements, a self-diagnostic tool—highlighted positively by several sector representatives who participated in a roundtable after the launch—to help interested SMEs gauge their digital maturity, along with training videos based on the results and the user’s interests.
The platform also offers a catalog of ICT service providers, a list of associations, a directory of marketplaces that sell products from others, a search tool for funding and resources to finance potential contracts, and a direct channel to interact with public administration to propose ideas.
“This is about sharing and collaboration, so we will continue to share and collaborate to make the platform bigger,” Aparici concluded.