Small businesses in the US number some 26 million and are responsible for $5 trillion in annual sales. And, according to the Intuit Future of Small Business report this marketplace will grow to 32 million by 2018.

The study says lightweight technologies make it easier than ever to run small and personal businesses (entrepreneurs can plug into parts of big-business infrastructure when needed). And the growth of social networking also helps small businesses. The report predicts that almost half of US small businesses will be involved in global trade by 2018.

One networking conduit entrepreneurs should be aware of and interact with are trade exchanges, now found in 35 countries around the world.

BarterNews has some 800 listings and information on trade exchanges around the globe: 800

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.