Alibaba.com, the business-to-business (B2B) business unit of Alibaba Group and one of the largest global B2B trading platforms, just released the February edition of Alibaba.com B2B Pulse. The monthly report shares relevant macroeconomic data and Alibaba.com platform trading patterns in various industries to provide insights into what’s happening in B2B trade, what we might see in future B2C trends, and the broader economy.
Key demand trends on the platform:
- US B2B daily demand has steadied, but digitized US SMBs are optimistic
- February’s data shows that after a year of consistent growth, daily demand in early 2022 returned to end of 2020 levels, but – according to Alibaba.com’s recent survey of U.S. SMBs – digitized U.S. SMBs have a bright outlook: digitized businesses are significantly more optimistic about the future of their own business (91%) compared to their analog counterparts (80%).
- “Beauty & Personal Care” and “Consumer Electronics” enter the top 5 U.S. demand categories, replacing “Machinery” and “Vehicles & Accessories”
- The top U.S. demand categories for February 2022 remain largely consistent with February 2021, with “Machinery” and “Vehicles & Accessories” exiting and “Beauty & Personal Care” and “Consumer Electronics” entering the top five; top categories include:
- Apparel, up from the #2 category in Feb 2020
- Home & Garden, up from the #4 category in Feb 2020
- Beauty & Personal Care, which was not in the top 5 in Feb 2020
- Consumer Electronics, which was not in the top 5 in Feb 2020
- Sports & Entertainment, down from #1 in Feb 2020
- “Construction & Real Estate” category makes the biggest month-over-month jump, followed by “Office and School Supplies”
- Demand for elevators and escalators drove a 15% month-over-month increase in Construction and Real Estate daily demand between January 2022 and February 2022.
- Demand for notebooks and writing pads, increasing demand “Office & School Supplies” by 8% from January 2022 to February 2022
Additional data and insight into what are impacting U.S. B2B SMBs from the Alibaba.com B2B Pulse can be found here.
