Alibaba Turns Up the Heat On B2B, But It's Not What You Think
The business-to-business (B2B) industry has been getting a lot of attention this year. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) continues to invest in its e-commerce platform, including its Amazon Business and B2B marketplace; software providers Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) continue to ramp up their abilities to help businesses with their digital sales capabilities; and small business champion Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) scooped up a B2B peer and launched investments into an order fulfillment network.
Not to be left out is Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), the Chinese tech titan that's already a preeminent player on the global B2B scene. The company recently announced that U.S. businesses can now open up shop and sell their wares on its globe-trotting platform. The reaction to a Chinese-run marketplace will no doubt be mixed, but this battle that's heating up is not a zero-sum game.
For most of us, e-commerce is all about shopping online for household and personal goods, from staples like groceries to the latest tech-powered appliances and gadgets. The industry has exploded in the last decade, and is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars every year across the globe.
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