Alibaba.com brought its national road show, “Build Ups” to Chicago this past week. It is now opening its platform to manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors in the U.S. to help them get a piece of the almost $24 trillion global B2B e-commerce market. The goal is to allow the 27M small business owners in the U.S. to sell and source products through their site.
“Alibaba aims to empower entrepreneurs and help them succeed on their own terms,” said John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group. “With 10 million active business buyers in over 190 countries and regions, we are reshaping B2B commerce by providing the tools and services needed for U.S. SMB companies to compete and succeed in today’s global marketplace.”
The timing on the introduction of this marketplace is perfect for small business owners who can be faced with a myriad of trading tariffs and protectionist costs on importing and exporting their products around the world. John says that “as a practical matter, the 1/3 of our ten million active buyers are based in the US and this kind of business is not impacted by any changes in the global trade environment. As for other markets that are impacted by changing global trading arrangements, U.S. businesses deserve access to platform that offers them more options for buyers from around the world. So we are all about providing choices and options for buyers and sellers and this is valuable for both sides in any trading relationship.”
Sellers on the site can access an easy-to-use interface for managing a digital store on their platform. It also includes communications tools for customer-relationship management to target likely prospects.
Alibaba.com launched their “Build Ups” national tour of educational and networking events to help small business owners tap into the global B2B e-commerce opportunity and demonstrate ways to leverage the platform. I suggest you attend one in your city or sign up for a preview of the marketplace online.
