Small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) used to be seen as underdogs in the global race to win eCommerce sales — but that is all beginning to change. Digital platforms, with their unprecedented global reach, have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the international eCommerce ecosystem. 
SMBs adopted no fewer than 13 new digital shopping and payment features between 2020 and 2021, underscoring how quickly and easily it is to innovate in a world powered by global digital platforms.
This is one of many new findings PYMNTS uncovered in the 2022 Global Digital Shopping Index: SMB Edition. We surveyed 13,114 consumers and 3,100 merchants — 798 of which were SMBs — across Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Arab Emirates as part of our ongoing research into how the digital transformation of the global economy is reshaping the eCommerce space.
Key findings from our research include the following:
• The average SMB now offers a 24% more frictionless shopping experience than larger competitors. This is largely because SMBs provide far more digital and cross-channel shopping features than larger businesses. SMBs are 46% more likely than larger businesses to offer cross-channel-capable digital profiles, for example, and 44% more likely to allow shoppers to pick up eCommerce orders at in-store kiosks.
• SMBs utilizing third-party platforms no longer see a need to expend resources building digital feature innovations from scratch. They no longer see a need to do so because adding new digital features is often as easy as partnering with a new platform provider — and because they already provide far more digital features than larger competitors.
• SMBs are tapping digital platforms to help enable the mobile shopping features their customers increasingly expect. Ninety-one percent of SMBs now offer at least one type of mobile-based shopping feature, including apps that allow users to navigate brick-and-mortar stores, apps that track eCommerce deliveries, mobile-optimized sites and more.
These are just a few of the latest trends emerging from this global wave of SMB 
innovation. The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Index: SMB Edition provides an overview of how digital platforms are reshaping the eCommerce ecosystem in SMBs’ favor.
To learn more about how digital platforms are democratizing the eCommerce space, download the report.