eBay Business Supply Brings B2B Sales Under One Umbrella

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) last week announced a significant combining and rebranding of several different eBay business-to-business (B2B) offerings, bringing them all under one umbrella the company calls eBay Business Supply. The eBay B2B offerings now encompassed under eBay Business Supply are: Business & Industrial, SAP Ariba Spot Buy, and eBay Wholesale Deals solutions.

eBay Business Supply

According to the online retail and auctioning giant, eBay Business Supply will continue to offer the broadest assortment of inventory, the best value and a seamless buying and selling experience for all sizes of businesses in order to tap into the enormous opportunity in the B2B ecommerce space.

The giant marketplace cites a Forrester study that projects the U.S B2B ecommerce market will grow from $780 billion in 2015 to $1.13 trillion in 2020.

“As more and more businesses recognize the advantage of B2B ecommerce, we're making some moves to bolster this category to anticipate and incentivize the market,” said Pooja Piyaratna, Divisional Merchandise Manager of Business & Industrial at eBay. “Rebranding as eBay Business Supply is the latest step in signaling our commitment to driving this category for the benefit of our customers.”

New Supply Source for Small Businesses

eBay says it wants its newly launched Business Supply marketplace to be the one-stop supply source for business. eBay Business Supply will reportedly make it even easier for businesses from SMBs to large enterprises to buy and sell supplies and equipment across more than a dozen major product categories.

The major product categories on eBay Business Supply include:

• Electrical & Test Equipment


• MRO & Industrial Supply


• Healthcare, Lab & Life Science


• Manufacturing & Metalworking


• Restaurant & Catering, and others.

eBay adds that additional offerings and partnerships within the B2B space for both buyers and sellers are in the works, so interested business owners and managers should keep an eye out for that.

B2B Rivalry Between eBay and Amazon May be Heating Up

It's interesting that the launch of eBay Business Supply comes about 15 months after Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) launched its own dedicated B2B marketplace dubbed Amazon Business, which absorbed AmazonSupply.

In early May this year, Amazon said that Amazon Business topped $1 billion in sales in its first 12 months, and that customer purchases were growing at about 20 percent each month, reports Bloomberg.

eBay, however, contends that through its ongoing efforts to help companies navigate common B2B e-commerce headaches, a broad selection of merchandise, ease-of-use and buyer and seller protection and financing, it has logged $4 billion in B2B sales per year, dwarfing Amazon's early earnings. eBay appears to be trying to expand beyond its $4 billion B2B sales with the launch of eBay Business Supply.

As the ecommerce market continues to grow and rivalry between eBay and Amazon (especially on the B2B front) intensifies, one can only hope good things will come out of it all for small retail businesses.

Image: eBay

This article, "eBay Business Supply Brings B2B Sales Under One Umbrella" was first published on Small Business Trends