Through e-commerce, businesses can exploit their potential to increase their market share and reach new markets.
Although the island has a strong IT infrastructure, enterprises in Malta have not as yet taken advantage of this, that offers SMEs a wide range of possibilities, particularly in facilitating their internationalisation efforts by reaching new clients and markets through e-commerce.
Target Group of E-commerce
- Micro Enterprises
- Small Enterprises
- Medium-sized Enterprises
Eligible Actions for E-commerce
The measure shall support SMEs through a non-repayable Grant to part-finance investment towards the design, development, implementation and delivery of an e-commerce website and/or a mobile application, or the upgrade of an existing website or mobile application, to enable online sales/bookings through the integration of an e-commerce payment gateway featuring a product/service catalogue and a shopping cart.
- Design, development, implementation and delivery of an e-commerce website and/or mobile application to meet the needs of the beneficiary SME.
- Development, implementation and delivery of all technical elements to enable the function of the website and/or mobile application including a CMS for users to upload content, secure online payment integration, including an online graphical product or service catalogue.
- Development, implementation and delivery of all technical elements to allow the successful integration of a payment system including appropriate electronic communication channels.
- Integration of appropriate web analytics software to allow SMEs to generate data reports on web traffic to and from the website and/or mobile application.
- Creation of a design for the website and/or mobile application that is in line with the brand identity of the SME.
- Registering and hosting of the site on secure servers.
- Compliance across all website and/or mobile application design and development with at least W3C Level A accessibility guidelines.
The measure supports SMEs through a grant to design, develop, implement and display an e-commerce website and / or mobile application or to co-finance investments to upgrade an existing website or mobile application. Enables online sales / booking by integrating an e-commerce payment gateway that includes a product / service catalog and shopping cart.
Services shall be procured from external service providers registered with the IB under the Scheme.
Aid under the Scheme shall be granted in accordance with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013 of 18 December 2013 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to minimise aid.
The maximum amount of the grant is 5000 EUR, with co-financing of up to 50% of eligible expenditure.
Eligible Costs for E-commerce
- Domain name registration
- Hosting
- Content Management System (CMS), software including required licenses
- e-commerce Website and/or Mobile Application design
- Shopping Cart integration
- Other Set-up fees (including setting up and configuration of the CMS system, system design, customisation and development, integration with a payment system/s, implementation of the required security features, testing and go live).
The measure shall be administered and managed through an open rolling call.