Online selling has helped the indie beauty market explode, but not every small business sells products through the internet. In fact, according data cited by eBay, 70% of small businesses do not have any online presence. The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered many brick-and-mortar retail doors and research suggests some of these business only have cash to survive for 27 days without new money coming into their registers.
 
To that end, eBay today launched Up & Running, an accelerator program specifically designed to help retailers without an e-commerce presence transition to selling online, pledging up to $100 million in support for small businesses across North America.
 
eBay’s program allows new sellers a free basic eBay store for three months and allows those businesses to sell up to 500 items for free.
 
Through "Up & Running," eBay will also provide educational webinars, individual support, and access to experienced sellers willing to mentor those who are new to eCommerce.
 
"For the last 25 years, eBay has helped launch and grow hundreds of thousands of small businesses, and now we've created Up & Running to accelerate the start-up time frame for retailers opening online stores during these unprecedented times," said Jordan Sweetnam, SVP eBay North America. "eBay was built on the simple premise that connecting buyers and sellers around the world creates economic opportunity, and this is exactly what we need to be doing – now more than ever."
 
New sellers will also receive the guidance and resources to run their business on eBay, including a suite of marketing and merchandising tools, customization features to build a brand, discounted shipping supplies and more, said eBay.
 
The launch of Up & Running follows last week's moves to help the small and medium businesses that are currently on eBay, according to the platform. The changes, which were announced to the seller community directly, include deferred fee payments, added seller protections and 100,000 incremental free listings. These actions reflect a commitment by eBay North America of more than $200 million in support programs for existing sellers, it said.
 
Google also announced a new $800-plus million commitment to support small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), health organizations and governments, and health workers on the frontline of this global pandemic. 
 
The effort includes $340 million in Google Ads credits that have been made available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year. Credit notifications will appear in Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across Google’s advertising platforms. 
 
“We hope it will help to alleviate some of the cost of staying in touch with their customers,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post last week.
 
The effort also includes $250 million in ad grants to help the World Health Organization (WHO) and more than 100 government agencies globally provide critical information on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other measures to help local communities (an increase from the initial $25 million announced last month). In addition, Google said it is providing $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions and NGOs specifically to run public service announcements on relief funds and other resources for SMBs.
 
A $200 million investment fund that will support NGOs and financial institutions around the world to help provide small businesses with access to capital. As one example, we’re working with the Opportunity Finance Network in the US to help fill gaps in financing for people and communities underserved by mainstream financial institutions. This is in addition to the $15 million in cash grants Google.org is already providing to nonprofits to help bridge these gaps for SMBs.
 
$340 million in Google Ads credits are available to all SMBs with active accounts over the past year. Credit notifications will appear in their Google Ads accounts and can be used at any point until the end of 2020 across our advertising platforms. We hope it will help to alleviate some of the cost of staying in touch with their customers.
 
A pool of $20 million in Google Cloud credits for academic institutions and researchers to leverage our computing capabilities and infrastructure as they study potential therapies and vaccines, track critical data, and identify new ways to combat COVID-19. 
 
Direct financial support and expertise to help increase the production capacity for personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving medical devices. Google said it is working with its longtime supplier and partner Magid Glove & Safety, with the goal of ramping up production of 2-3 million face masks in the coming weeks that will be provided to the CDC Foundation.