A total of 13,000 SMEs and entrepreneurs from all over Spain have participated in the program Take off from Amazon during their first year of life, with the aim of strengthen your online presence or start selling online. In fact, a survey carried out by the company reveals that around 70% of Despega participants did not have an online presence when they began their training, and more than 40% affirm that the courses have been key to starting selling online or increasing their sales.
Further, more than 60% feel more prepared to sell online thanks to the training received at Despega, and more than 50% have already applied the knowledge acquired in this program in their businesses.
“One year after the launch of the Despega program, it is encouraging to see the ability of small and medium-sized Spanish companies to excel and how online sales are being key to their recovery and growth both inside and outside of Spain. SMEs are an economic and job creation engine in Spain, and for this reason, we have committed to training 50,000 Spanish SMEs and entrepreneurs to sell online before the end of 2025 so that they can make the leap to online sales ”, it states Ryan Frank, director of Amazon Marketplace in Spain.
Xavier Flamand, head of Amazon Business Partner Services in Europe adds that “Amazon has invested 2.8 billion euros last year in logistics, tools, services, programs and training in Europe to help SMEs succeed in their businesses. Through Despega we want to continue supporting small Spanish companies to develop the necessary skills to sell globally and to lay the foundations of online sales to be successful in the coming years either with Amazon, or through other online services ”.
In total, during this first year, Despega has offered Spanish SMEs and entrepreneurs around 15,000 hours of training in virtual seminars, intensive courses and on the online platform developed together with IE University. At the regional level, SMEs in the Community of Madrid are the ones with the highest participation in training (23%), followed by those of Catalonia (18%), Andalusia (16%) and the Valencian Community (13%).
A case of success
Comercial Nespral, is an Asturian SME that designs, manufactures and markets orthopedic, support and technical aids products. Created in 2015, they sell through Amazon throughout Europe with great success and already plan to open their business to the US market. Dionisio and Juan Nespral, Its founders joined the Despega program in May of this year to optimize their online sales and exports, and applied everything they learned to the business, managing to increase sales by 20% from August to September. “ANDor I recommend all SMEs to join Despega. To sell online, we are in the 21st century and now everything is on the internet. They have to be digitized “ it states.
Since its launch a year ago, a total of 14 public and private collaborators They have joined Despega to support SMEs in their digitization and internationalization. Among them are institutions such as ICEX, the autonomous governments of Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha, Aragón and Extremadura, associations such as CEPYME or AECOC and private companies such as Avask and Payoneer to cover new training areas or Womenalia to offer training to women entrepreneurs and businesswomen.
The latest organization to join the program is Ironhack, which will offer € 165,000 in scholarships to SMEs and entrepreneurs of the Despega program interested in expanding their knowledge of web development, data analysis, cybersecurity or UX design. “We believe that technology education should be accessible to everyone, regardless of the prior knowledge of each company. We are very happy to collaborate in the Amazon Despega program and thus expand its training offer in areas such as Cybersecurity, web development and design or data analysis “, explains Tiago Santos, head of Iberia at Ironhack.
