Avito opened a cafe for networking and discussions at SPIEF

Avito Business 360 cafe, designed for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, opened at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. This is a place of networking, communication and learning, Avito said.

The cafe is open to all SPIEF guests. From June 18 to 21, public talks will be held here, where they will discuss applied trends that set the market landscape - from cross—border trade to the use of AI. On June 18, the program opened with a discussion about starting and developing a business: speakers shared their cases and told what growth opportunities there are in 2025. On the second day of the forum, a public talk about women's entrepreneurship will be held, where they will discuss how to deal with gender stereotypes and bias in the business environment, and a public talk about the specifics of working with goods from abroad. On June 20, the cafe will talk about key market trends.

On the final day of the forum, a master class for students with life hacks on doing business will be held, where experts will share the secrets of choosing a niche and products for sale in a particular region.

Avito Business 360 is a part of the Avito platform, created to solve the problems of small and medium—sized businesses. Various goods and services are collected there, including rental of special equipment and commercial real estate. This section also searches for employees and partners, buys and sells ready-made businesses.

"According to the latest data, the number of people employed in the SME sector amounted to almost 29.5 million people, or 39% of the total number of the country's working population. There are more and more small and medium-sized businesses in Russia, which is a real driver of the country's economy. But at the same time, small and medium—sized businesses are currently overloaded, with almost 70% of their representatives working over 60 hours a week, so time is the most valuable resource for businesses. And to make it easier for representatives of small and medium—sized businesses to do business every day, we have developed a convenient and multifunctional space," said Ilya Dudkovsky, Director of Avito Business 360.