China outmuscles the US in B2B digital sales

The US is a big B2B ecommerce market with annual sales that reached $1.64 trillion in 2021, based on a projection from Digital Commerce 360.

But while it has a huge market, the US is not the world’s biggest B2B ecommerce market. That distinction goes to China, according to some global market research done by Trellis, a digital B2B agency. Overall, China generates annual B2B digital commerce sales of $2.78 trillion.

That Chinese number is 1.7 times bigger than the U.S. B2B ecommerce market. “China is the world’s biggest e-commerce market, led by e-commerce subsidiaries of the Alibaba group – Taobao, Alibaba.com and Tmall,” writes Trellis CEO and co-founder Isiah Bollinger in a recent blog post. “

With an annual growth rate of 21%, China is also one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets.” Altogether, the 10 largest B2B ecommerce markets generate combined annual sales of $5.183 trillion. Of that total, China accounts for 85.3% of Top 10 market sales. In, comparison, the US accounts for 31.6% of the world’s 10 largest B2B ecommerce markets.

“Most of us would believe the US is leading this charge in eCommerce growth, but the truth might surprise you,” Bollinger writes. “Asia Pacific holds the largest market share in 2021 due to rising internet penetration and smartphone use has led to an increase in the number of online suppliers and customers across the region.”