Last Tuesday was the first “B2B Tuesday,” an initiative sponsored by Alibaba.com to raise awareness about the contributions small and medium businesses make to the US economy and to help them get more market share in the global ecommerce community.
Alibaba.com is the B2B division of Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA).

B2B Tuesday will from now on be a regular event celebrated not only by Alibaba.com, but by other organizations that share similar goals. The 2B2 community will promote the successes of US 2B2 SMBs, share knowledge, resources, and other information that can help them grow. They hope to help SMBs to access the over $23.9 trillion global B2B eCommerce pie, an amount that is larger by a factor of six than the B2C eCommerce market. The event every Tuesday will feature B2B stories of success, face-to-face events, highlights of new offerings, educational content, and more.

An independent research company recently conducted a “US SMB Confidence Survey at the behest of Alibaba.com. They asked 5,000 US SMBs who engage in B2B business to relate to the following issues:

• The survey found that 62% of B2B businesses are feeling optimistic about the economy.
• A bit less than half (46%) said they expect their B2B business to improve.
• Substantially more than half (57%) hired new employees to support their online B2B buying and selling.

Other issues explored in the survey included globalization and digitalization.

“Strong SMB confidence among American business owners and entrepreneurs, plus the growth from digitizing of their business and doing business globally means the future is bright for U.S. SMBs,” said John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group. “Less than one third of businesses we surveyed have been doing business online for more than five years. That means there is an enormous opportunity for U.S. SMBs to digitize and grow their businesses globally with ease. And B2B Tuesday is one more example of how Alibaba.com is here to help.”