Alibaba is making targeted efforts to draw European SMEs. In accordance with the corporate itself, it has been successful: the variety of SME buyers from Germany has increased by 14 percent up to now six months. Moreover, increasingly British SMEs are using Alibaba.com as their procurement platform.
Towards the top of its annual March Expo, Alibaba.com’s flagship online trade show, the corporate reported strong business buyer demand from each German and UK SMEs.
More efficient and cost-effective
In accordance with Alibaba, SMEs are looking for ways to make their procurement processes more efficient and cost-effective. “They’re facing challenges similar to macroeconomic pressure, disruptions in the availability chain, and issues in supplier relationships.”
On this quest, many German corporations turn to Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce giant says. The variety of lively SME buyers is 14 percent higher this month than in September 2023. The press release doesn’t mention what number of German small and medium-sized sellers are actually lively on Alibaba.com.
Alibaba also recorded a “positive rise” within the variety of lively B2B buyers from the UK at this 12 months’s March Expo, without specifying seller numbers or growth percentages.
Shift to digital procurement channels
In accordance with Alibaba, the rise in SME buyers reflects the overall shift to digital procurement channels, which Amazon in Europe also taps into. Alibaba’s recently released ‘B2B Sentiment Survey’ found that 52 percent of German SMEs now make online purchases on B2B marketplaces. In the UK, that percentage was 51 percent.
Most German and British SMEs purchase on marketplaces.
Jijay Shen, General Manager Europe for Alibaba.com, states that online B2B marketplaces make cross-border sourcing “easier than ever before, enabling SMEs to explore opportunities to seek out latest products, mitigate the danger of their supply chain, and drive margin at the clicking of a button”.
Alibaba.com in France
Alibaba.com can be actively targeting buyers in France, the third largest ecommerce market in Europe. Earlier this 12 months, it launched a partnership to advertise French SMEs with government agency Business France.
