<< Background >>The Retail sector supposes the second largest service sector in the EU, employing 29 million people (8.6% of total employment) and contributing 11% to the EU's GDP. The sector is mainly composed by SMEs, from which 18% are self-employed. Furthermore, it is estimated that the retail sector adds value in the amount of €1 trillion to other sectors like wholesalers, transport, finance or manufacturing, a 10% of total EU amount, according to the European Commission. Retail sector is thus a key driver of economic growth in the long run for its importance boosting internal demand and consumption, as according to the European Commission, households spend one third of their budget in retail shops. Moreover, it has an impact on quality of life in EU citizens, as well as being a key driver of competitiveness, growth and innovation. However, productivity and dynamism in the EU sector has lagged behind in comparison with other sectors and other economies (for instance Japan, US or China), a situation that threatens the sector’s stability and importance. According to the European Parliament, globalization will force actors from this sector sooner or later to internationalize due to the competition and the lack of protection in the domestic markets. This trend was largely accentuated with the COVID-19 pandemy and mobility / shopping restriction, which were accompanied by the explosion of e-commerce. Thus, the internationalization process is becoming crucial for European SMEs in the retail sector, as it supposes an opportunity to obtain additional capacity, strengthen their financial position, achieve innovation, increase revenues, diversify risks and attract talented workers. Even when the EU Single Market gives access to 500 million potential consumers, still few EU SMEs decide to go international, either inside or beyond the EU, as the literature shows relatively low rates of exports (inside Europe and beyond) from EU retails, which shows that the EU still has much room for improvement. This situation is caused by barriers retailers face related to the internationalization process. As such, partners have observed among the major issues: - Disinformation of international markets. The lack of knowledge about local business practices as well as insufficient analysis of markets.- Difficulty of identifying foreign business opportunities and potentially beneficial synergies with local business.- Lack of a solid distribution channel that could guarantee optimal provision.- Limited internal structure regarding human and financial resources, managerial attitudes to growth and training.- Lack of experienced departments (marketing, logistics…) to overcome foreign barriers like culture, linguistics or legal problems.- Reluctance from local business to provide SMEs guidance and representation.From the analysis above, we deducted a clear need for training in the internationalisation field for professionals and future professionals from the sector.<< Objectives >>START- “Improve Internationalization Skills of SMEs in Retail sector” project aims to improve internationalization skills of SMEs in the retail sector in order to encourage retailers to develop their business in international markets. The project will provide experienced retailers and youth or unemployed interested in retail for career development with tools for enhancing their competences in internationalization and achieve required knowledge to be capable to develop a competitive strategy entering in a foreign market. Retailing sector is a low margin business from which benefiting from economies of purchase, supply chain investments and technologies for boosting productivity can only be achieved by large retailers. For SMEs that operate in mature national sectors of the economy, gaining productivity and competitiveness is a tough fruitless work. Reaching foreign markets present an opportunity for diversifying economic activity, decreasing risks and taking advantage of an unexplored market, widening target and market share. The main objective of START project is to help current and future professionals from the retail sector in developing an international strategy for their business, thanks to a proper training able to guide that path and the successful implementation of the internationalization process, using the latest technologies available. In the detail, partners have formulated 4 Specific Objectives that they wish to address:Specific Objective 1: Define the professional profile of an internationalization manager of SMEs in the retail sector that will support further training in this field. This profile should become a standard of reference while talking about internationalization training for retail. Specific Objective 2: Train entrepreneurs, start-ups, and decision makers from retail SMEs with key competences and skills so that they can extend their implementation internationallySpecific Objective 3: Train young and unemployed people seeking for new job opportunities in the retail sector, giving them a strong plus-value on the job market. Specific Objective 4: Increase the digital literacy of learners to ease the distance learning process and for an optimisation of the use of e-commerce technologies to further develop small retail businesses.<< Implementation >>The START project brings together 5 partners from 6 countries and regions that are particularly concerned by the fashion industry: Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Poland, Romania and Cyprus, while meeting the required skills to implement such action, with partners being business support organisations and experts in internationalisation, business management or VET education. Together, they will address: - Experienced retail entrepreneurs, needing to renew their skills and up-skills to develop further their SMEs toward international practices, integrating digital, social, and economic factors.- Youth, especially low-skilled youth or unemployed, providing them new knowledge, skills and competence in international retail business management to develop new career opportunities. - Supporting stakeholders for the exploitation and mainstreaming of the training to be developed. During this project, partners will implement the following activities:- Development of a mobile report about the skills needed by retail SMEs when deciding to internationalise according to representatives from the sector (entrepreneurs and trainers), in the view of developing a professional profile and associated standard of competences and an online training course answering to the international training needs. - Piloting activities will be implemented where the different target group will meet and increase their respective skills. At least 200 individuals will be trained during the projet life. - Dissemination events, that will be organized in each country at the end of the project as a way to promote the results achieved in a sustainable way. - ICT will be used as a catalyst for the project activities impact. - Our activities will be transnational, being in line with an international scenario for smart growth.- And of course, all those activities will be supported by an efficient management system that will itself be designed with the idea of optimisation of resources, transnational meetings and virtual meetings, online dissemination strategy, the use of online management tools, and a continuous reporting effort to spread our achievements.<< Results >>As a main result, our partnership expects to raise the level of competence of retailers and future retailers from all over Europe in the field of internationalisation, bettering our chances to deliver our products on larger territories in the context of globalized markets. This result will be achieved through the production of 2 main results: Result 1 : Mobile report about the skills needed by retail SMEs when deciding to internationalise according to representatives from the sector. This report, established on the basis of large scale questionnaires and focus groups is aimed at delivering a profile of the needed competence to properly internationalise a retail business. It will give us a better understanding of what are the training needs observed on the ground. This report will be accompanied by at least 10 best practices of retail SMEs internationalisation. It will be delivered in a digital format for a higher diffusion and impact. Result 2: START training courseThe START training course will be an online open educational resource that proposes to fill the gap observed in retailers competences profile. It will address topics such as retail sub-sectors market trends, fairs and commercial missions, e-commerce, etc. At least 4 full training modules will be developed and 20 retail entrepreneurs and 20 future professionals from the sector will be trained by each partner (total 200). Thanks to this, partners expect to achieve significant impact at local, and further national and European levels, supporting retail SMEs to open their horizon towards new market niches that were until now non-explored, making full benefits of e-commerce technologies.