At Alibaba.com, our mission is to be an ally to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and help them succeed. To better serve these businesses, we’re issuing the Alibaba.com B2B Pulse, a monthly update that serves two primary purposes: First, we will aggregate the biggest macro developments relevant to US SMBs and second, we will share proprietary insights into US B2B demand that we observe on the Alibaba.com global B2B marketplace.
We hope this helps our customers, media, and wider community of people in the B2B world have a richer understanding of the landscape. We also hope to have some fun with this as B2B sales often act as a leading indicator for what’s to come not only in retail trends, but even changes in our everyday lives.
In PNC’s semi-annual Economic Outlook Survey, 71% of respondents expected their sales to increase over the next six months, with 58% expecting an increase in profits. Additionally, 54% expect to increase their prices over the same time period, with 36% expecting to increase prices by more than 5%. According to PNC Chief Economist Gus Faucher, this increase in optimism is due to the rise in vaccination rates. He suggests that the “efforts to support vaccinations broadly could strengthen the economic recovery.”
Out of 1,000 US-based small business owners, 59% reported that they will require new hires to get vaccinated, 23% said they will at least consider it, and 19% said they would not require proof of vaccination according to a recent survey by Digital. However, of the SMBs who will require new hires to get vaccinated or are thinking about it, only 78% are requiring current employees to get the vaccine. And for the 19% of SMBs not requiring new hires to have proof of vaccination, 34% said that the current labor shortage had an effect on their decision.
In the latest NFIB COVID-19 Survey, over one-quarter (27%) of SMBs are experiencing significant labor shortages, and 18% are experiencing moderate labor shortages. Of these businesses experiencing labor shortages, 25% are seeing a significant loss of sales opportunities. Meanwhile, The Business Journals analyzed a survey of 4,079 SMBs conducted by Alignable and found that two-thirds (66%) of SMBs are having a very difficult time finding employees — up from 59% in August and 50% in July. To combat this labor shortage, some states are offering return-to-work incentives. For instance, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development is offering US $500 to individuals hired by businesses with 100 or less employees.
Last month, we saw a six-month high of 44 cargo ships awaiting entry to the largest California ports. This number has now increased to 73 according to BBC. And Business Insider reports that the average wait for berth space has increased from 7.6 days in August to 8.7 in September — causing delays of nearly 22 days. As demand continues to spike, especially before holiday shopping, major disruptions are expected. Experts recommend doing shopping ahead of Black Friday, shopping locally, and only purchasing domestic goods.
The pandemic pushed SMBs online back in March 2020. They needed to quickly adopt new technology to ensure their employees could continue working from home while staying in touch with customers. Now, over a year and a half later, the Salesforce annual “Small and Medium Business Trends” report shows that 71% of 2,5000 SMBs credit getting online as the reason they survived the pandemic. 72% of these SMBs have increased their company’s online presence over the past year, and 42% of growing SMBs have accelerated their technology investments over the past year, compared to 22% in August 2020.
This month’s issue of the Alibaba.com B2B Pulse offers unique insights into the specific trends we’ve seen during Super September, the annual platform-wide sales event on Alibaba.com.
Top growth categories from September 2020 to 2021 reveal that US B2B companies are behaving in line with three major trends:
In particular, categories and sub-categories that saw the greatest increase in demand (YoY) include:
Commercial Service Equipment (142% YoY growth); within it:
Toys & Hobbies (109%); within it:
Minerals & Metallurgy (74%)
Construction & Real Estate
Sports & Entertainment (65%)
When looking at month-over-month movements, here are the biggest “movers” between August 2021 and September 2021:
To facilitate global B2B trade amongst SMBs, we are kicking off the Alibaba.com Online Trade Show | Autumn on our platform from October 18-31. Stay tuned for the next B2B Pulse to see what buyers are stocking up on.
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