There’s a purpose of business behind every website out there on the internet. Whatever the intention may be, a website is designed and created for a specific purpose. Presumably, the best instances to define the business objectives around the digital domains are the websites for B2B businesses.

So what’s a B2B website? It’s a sphere where the majority of the clients are the businesses and not the individuals. Also, the conventional marketing principles, tools, and methods are not entirely applied in this process.

To gain maximum attention for the service or product, reputation needs to be earned first and foremost. This could be done by providing fantastic services to the clients, earning loyalty through an exclusive supply of the goods and maintaining a healthy relationship through effective price and delivery. In this digitally equipped environment, all of these things are possible through a website.

Majority of the small and medium-sized B2B organizations are experiencing slow rate of growth in their business, and how no experience or knowledge to make it global. What’s the reason? And why these firms are facing so many hurdles?

Expanding your business globally is not a problem in today’s jargon, regardless of where you’re located. There are quite a lot of B2B organizations efficiently working from their respective countries and attaining profits through their B2B ventures. These websites gather suppliers and buyers from the world and provide them services making it efficient for both the parties to purchase the products.

I have compiled a few of these B2B websites, who are making a significant name in the buying and selling the world. These websites are the largest and the most successful ones, and they do it with grace and style. Here are my top picks of the biggest and the most successful B2B marketplaces around the world:

1. Alibaba

Alibaba Group is a Chinese private consortium based in Hangzhou dedicated to e-commerce on the Internet, including business-to-business, retail, and consumer sales portals. It also offers online payment services, a price comparison search engine, and cloud data storage services. In 2012, two Alibaba portals together handled 1.1 trillion yuan (170 000 million dollars) sales, which is more than its competitors both eBay and Amazon.com combined.

The company operates mainly in the People’s Republic of China, and in March 2013 the Economist magazine estimated that the consortium could be valued at between $ 55 billion and $ 120 billion. During 2013, it achieved revenues of approximately US $ 7.5 billion and had approximately 22,000 employees in March 2014.

Alibaba is currently listed in Hong Kong Stock Exchange, it is easily one of the oldest and biggest online B2B platform in the world serving more than 35 million users. It has ten associated companies, according to the corporate summary available on its website which are Alibaba International, Alibaba China, Taobao, Tmall, Juhuasuan, AliExpress, Alimama, Aliyun, Alipay, China Smart Logistics.

Alibaba has shares in all types of things, but the company operates mainly through three sites: Taobao, China’s largest shopping site; Tmall: Resembles Taobao, but the products on offer are of the highest quality; and Alibaba.com, which connects Chinese exporters with companies in other parts of the world.

2. DHgate

DHgate is a B2B platform that allows importers from the world to buy small volumes of Chinese goods at wholesale price. Here you can find electronic gadgets, clothing, decorative items, sports accessories, etc. DHGate markets more than 30 Million products in 227 countries worldwide. It has more than 5 million customers worldwide and is currently among the 2100 most visited pages on the internet.

DHgate has been accused to be a scam site in the past, but later all the accusations were dissipated by the growing fame of the portal. Just like Ebay and Amazon, It is also a global vendor market. The portal is used by at least one million small Chinese vendors. DHgate.com keeps a close watch on providers and does not take scams lightly. However, it is impossible to guarantee that each provider is legal.

Some suppliers at DHgate offer products with CE, RoHS and FCC certificates. The easiest way to avoid uncertified products is to enter the product name along with the certification standard in the search field. Individual products in the United States and the European Union require compliance with certain standards such as FCC, CE, and EN71. Very few products on DHgate.com meet European and American product standards. While there are many quality products to buy at DHgate.com, we recommend American and European buyers avoid certain products such as toys, electronics, baby products, vehicles, cosmetics, and chemicals.

3. TradeKey

An extensive B2B marketplace for connecting suppliers with buyers. It has a strong focus on Asian countries, especially India, China, Pakistan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

This site offers three strong services to its visitors. The first is the offer to buy; there are those who are looking for a particular product, can reference this and launch a request to the thousands of suppliers that are on this platform, who is interested will contact and offer its services.

The second is products; there you can find a varied selection of products, distributed by categories of wholesalers, manufacturers, and factories that seek to export their products. The third is companies, where you can find a complete directory of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.

It also offers you the option to become a reseller of its manufacturers, exporters, wholesalers and other small and medium companies and thus earn commissions without limitation. From your app to Global Trading is the world’s leading and fastest growing (B2B) online business-to-business portal that connects small and medium importers, exporters and businesses across the globe for international trade. With app no matter where you are you can now search for new suppliers, connect with new buyers on the go.

TradeKey.com has proven to be a reliable online business platform for global commerce, strength which is either wholesale trade or bulk import or exports. TradeKey has bridged the gap between suppliers and buyers, manufacturers and importers from 240 countries globally for years with its unique and powerful commercial matching engine and efficient promotion tools.

4. Made-in-China

Another popular & one of the best B2B websites you must’ve heard of. It was developed and is operated by Focus Technology Co., Ltd. From the country of China; it is a leader in the industry of electronic business. All their products are either made in China or Taiwan.

However, Made-in-China has had a few issues when in 2007 the US, Canada, Australia and the European Union issued recalls on a broad range of Chinese-made consumer goods.

Yet, it remains one of the most successful websites in the world for business to business sales.

5. ExportHub

An international B2B marketplace known for its buyers connecting the sellers from all over the globe, ExportHub circulates with an aim to make the operations in the business effective as ever. The skills, the tools, and the knowledge are available for this website which is working tirelessly to facilitate the buyers and suppliers.

Unlike other B2B platforms, ExportHub also provides exclusive services to the clients and allow them to choose the plan as per their wishes with each service having different kinds of traits.

The customers can select different kind’s packages from the standard, gold, digital package and VIP and all these packages connect the suppliers to the buyers on a different level, scale, and market.

The thing which makes ExportHub.com different from the traditional B2B websites is the fact that absolute value and importance is given to the suppliers when they invest their hard-earned money for profit.

ExportHub also facilitates the buyers through account managers who strive to provide efficient services to its customers.

6. EC Plaza

Since started as a B2B business site in 1996, EC Plaza has grown to No.1 Trade Leader providing online and off line service to over 1,000,000 members. Based on export marketing, we are operating not only B2B website, EDI service and trade consulting but also offline trade-related services for SMEs.

With worldwide network and high brand recognition, They are extending our business field to the global market by providing great value such as more business opportunities, cost saving and convenience.

Over 4 million offers are posted in their website, which is the largest scale in the world. Their B2B trade website is listed on the top level of several famous ranking sites such as Alexa, Rankey, 100 HOT etc.

Overseas Marketing Specialist, EC Plaza
EC Plaza provides total solution for your overseas trade marketing needs.

  • ECPlaza.net : Global B2B e-Marketplace
  • Overseas Market Research
  • Trade Infrastructure Establishment
  • On and Off-line Overseas Marketing
  • Trade Consulting Service

7. Global Sources

Global sources is one of the first B2B platform that was listed in NASDAQ under the name GSOL. The B2B platform is famous for its quality suppliers from different industries. Many Chinese manufacturers choose to pay a significant amount of money to become a verified supplier on this portal.

Established in Singapore in 2000, Global Sources facilitates international trade, focusing mainly on bringing the traders around the world closer to each other.

Like Alibaba, Globalsources.com is a directory of manufacturers and suppliers, mostly Chinese, to facilitate B2B e-commerce. This platform is associated to the International Trade Fairs that are developed in Hong Kong and where the most renowned manufacturers, suppliers and distributors from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong participate. According to Wikipedia, 95 out of the 100 most recognized retail chains in the world use this platform to connect with suppliers and manufacturers.

There is a greater selectivity of suppliers and manufacturers given in the origin, development, and actuality of the platform. Being associated with the Hong Kong Trade Fairs most of its members are registered companies on the island with extensive experience in trading with the West. This allows the concepts of durability, functionality, design, customer service, as well as the rules and principles of international trade to be a premise of these companies. In other words, the offers have a greater guarantee in many ways.

8. ThomasNet.com

Previously called ‘The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers’ ThomasNet.com is a leading online platform for B2B seller discovery and product sourcing, and is visited by more than 1.8 million buyers every month. For over a century, Thomas have connected manufacturing and industrial buyers and sellers.

Today buyers worldwide including engineers, purchasing agents, facilities managers and more, come online and use ThomasNet for product sourcing and supplier discovery, mainly in the USA.

This free online platform combines semantic product search technology with information rich company profiles enabling educated supplier selection. It is a large and increasingly global marketplace that promotes 650,000 distributors, manufacturers and service companies within 67,000 industrial categories.

Thomas.net is more than a directory, allowing you to individually ask companies for quotes. Unlike Alibaba.com it doesn’t allow you to publish a general “Request for Quote” from everyone, but it is still very useful. The domain authority of this site speaks for itself.

9. EC21

Established in 1997 in Korea, EC21 is one of the world’s top 10 largest online B2B marketplaces. Like Alibaba it is truly global and has one million buyers and over 600,000 enquiries are exchanged every month. It started as an online trade board of the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) and in 2000, EC21 Inc. was spun off.

EC21 currently operates 3 different B2B marketplaces, EC21 Chinese, EC21 Korean, and EC21 Global which has 8 different linguistic user interfaces.

EC21 is headquartered in Seoul and has 8 regional sales offices throughout mainland China along with offices in Vietnam, Turkey, India, Italy, Russia and Pakistan

Like Alibaba, EC21 provides Basic and Premium membership services in which sellers can easily create their own homepage, showcase products, reply to request for quotes and locate and contact buyers.

10. GlobalSpec

GlobalSpec.com is a popular platform for industrial parts, machines, and services related to that. It is a B2B website from the United States and works directly for the North American and Asian market. With the increasing demand for industrial parts all over the world, the company has been earning millions by connecting the buyers and sellers.

Also, with an increasing percentage of electronic industries in the North American market, GlobalSpec’s payment directory system is well maintained where the customer can make a list of all the potential customers since the system detects the visits and debug accordingly.

Sources :

  • https://www.waystocap.com/blog/comparison-of-b2b-marketplaces/
  • https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2017/july/b2b-platforms-to-help-your-business-grow-globally
  • http://www.toplistsonline.com/top-10-b2b-trade-websites
  • https://medium.com/sellergyan/top-10-b2b-marketplaces-around-the-world-884a499ee4f6
  • https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-10-b2b-websites-generate-massive-business-leads-worldwide-mcgraw/