Tag Archives: B2B

If It’s Tuesday It’s B2B Day

Emerging Markets, , ,

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.”

Amazon Expanding into Online B2B Marketplace

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Amazon Logo courtesy of Bernard Goldbach
Amazon Logo courtesy of Bernard Goldbach

As of Tuesday businesses can stock up on their supplies via a new marketplace launched by Amazon.com, the astoundingly successful online retailer. Amazon will now be a player in this quickly growing market estimated to be valued at over $8.2 trillion in the United States.

The new platform will be called Amazon Business. It will offer supplies to a huge variety of businesses from biotech companies to oil and gas firms. The new marketplace will also offer special pricing and discounts for buying large quantities, two-day free shipping for purchases over $49, tax exempt status and the possibility to receive products with an Amazon guarantee.

The move will help Amazon get a foot in the door of the fast-expanding online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace. The online sector of B2B is expected to make up as much as 12 percent of all B2B sales in the US by the year 2020, according to Forrester Research estimates.

Forrester believes that over the next five years a compound annual growth rate of 7.7 percent can be expected.

“Now, business customers have access to products that are only available to businesses as well as business exclusive pricing on a number of products,” Amazon Vice-President Prentis Wilson stated.

In order to better help businesses find what they need Amazon Business will divide its products into categories such as office supplies, IT equipment, janitorial supplies, healthcare products, large industrial equipment, education, and food service supplies.

Now such impossible to find items such as traffic signs, industrial-sized deep fyers, antibodies, 55-gallon steel drums, and even a machine to pull out dents are only a click away.