Small business organizations launch eCommerce startup series

Listen to this article

The Greenville Area Small Business Development Center, Piedmont Service Corp of Retired Executives and the CommunityWorks Women’s Business Center are partnering to present a three-part series on starting an e-commerce business in the Upstate. The series starts March 15.

SBDC’s Earl Gregorich, Women’s Business Center’s Ana Parra and Jerry Smith, a volunteer who leads training programs with Piedmont SCORE, collaborated to create the curriculum and will present on various topics throughout the series, according to a news release. Ten at the Top and its Upstate Entrepreneur Ecosystem initiative are also providing promotional support for the series.

“Ana, Earl and I are excited to bring this e-commerce workshop series to the local small business community,” Smith said in the release. “The collaboration of the WBC, SCORE, and SBDC will provide a diverse approach and ensure this important topic is fully explored.”

The Women’s Business Center will launch the first workshop, “eCommerce: Is it Right for Your Business?” at noon on March 15, followed by Piedmont SCORE’s “eCommerce: Planning for Success” at noon on April 15 and SBDC’s “eCommerce: Finding the Right Technology” at noon on May 13.

According to the release, the series will offer attendees the information they need to determine if selling online is right for their business, the steps to set it up properly and how to evaluate and utilize the technologies available.

“All of our organizations emphasize the need for small businesses to form strategic partnerships,” Gregorich said in the release. “This training provides a great example of how partnering can be beneficial to all those involved.”

The Upstate Entrepreneur Ecosystem was developed to increase the capacity and ability of the Upstate ecosystem to help entrepreneurs be more successful faster.  Erin Ouzts, in her role as facilitator for the initiative for Ten at the Top, saw that each organization was offering important parts of e-commerce startup and management training, but it had been a while since there was an overview of the steps to launch, according to the release.

“The pandemic has created an unprecedented demand for online access to products and services,” Ouzts said in the release. “Any education we can provide for our entrepreneurs and business owners about how to evaluate and successfully launch a website to sell online, is another step toward helping our local businesses survive.”

The SBDC, SCORE and Women’s Business Center are supported in different ways by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“Collaboration is always a good idea and right now when there is such a critical need, a partnership among resource partners helps us reach more business owners and provide additional tools to keep businesses sustainable,” Parra said in the release.