Businesses run from British homes undertake £32bn of global trade
More Britons are setting up international businesses from home, new figures revealed yesterday.
Post Office International Payments (POIP) estimates that £32bn of goods have been traded with overseas buyers and sellers from so-called spare room traders, who will utilise websites such as eBay.
Approximately 70 per cent of all new businesses start off at home while almost one in five people in the UK have sold items profitably to foreign buyers online, POIP said.
Most UK purchases were from Asia, but the EU and North America were also popular choices with home traders able to source cheaper goods globally. UK exports went mostly to European Union countries, with eastern Europe and North America also big buyers.
“Starting a home-based business is now easy, as you can set up a virtual store on the internet and profitably trade internationally from your spare room,” said Nick Kennett, director of financial services at Post Office Money.
“People increasingly recognise they can start a low-cost, high-margin business that can trade globally from a studio flat, or million pound mansion.”