The UK’s micro business population is booming. Defined as firms with 0-9 employees, there are now 5m such businesses in the UK, up from 3.5m in 2000. In contrast, the populations of all other firm sizes have either increased only marginally or fallen over the same period. The result is that micro businesses today account...

This report shows that those using online craft marketplaces appear to differ from conventional business owners in many ways – not just in terms of who they are and where they come from, but also how they run their businesses and interact with customers and other shop owners.

The UK is experiencing a boom in microbusinesses and self-employment. Today there are 600,000 more microbusinesses (firms with zero to nine employees) in existence than there were when the recession first began in 2008, and 40 percent more than at the turn of the century. Likewise, the number of people working for themselves has increased...