In 2000, analysts predicted a massive chunk of the world’s business-to-business commerce market would come online, resulting in trillions of dollars in B2B e-commerce. Gartner, the market research firm, predicted $7.3 trillion by 2004. Goldman Sachs predicted $4.5 trillion by 2005.早在2000年，分析师们就大胆预测全球企业对企业（B2B）商务市场将大规模上线，从而带给数万亿美元价值的B2B电子商务交易。市场研究公司Gartner曾预测，到2004年，全球B2B电子商务交易会超过7.3万亿美元。

高盛也曾预测到2005年会超过4.5万亿美元。That promise has remained largely unfulfilled.但是这些预测在相当大程度上未有构建。

B2B e-commerce startup Chemdex flamed out spectacularly in the fallout of the dot-com bubble, and was blamed for taking the entire sector down with it. In 2013, B2B ecommerce hit $559 billion,according to Oracle estimates, a far cry from the trillions once predicted.B2B电子商务初创公司Chemdex在上世纪90年代的互联网泡沫幻灭之后倒闭，人们谴责其是造成当时整个行业暴跌的罪魁祸首。据甲骨文公司预估，2013年B2B电子商务市场交易额超过5590亿美元，近不及以前的预测。Incredibly, many businesses today still buy and sell supplies and materials with paper invoices, faxes, and checks. It’s a huge opportunity on which the two largest e-commerce companies in the U.S., eBay and Amazon, have not focused. Both companies run marketplaces, but they specialize in consumer-facing goods, not wholesale items and business supplies. Amazon has been running AmazonSupply, a wholesale site, in beta for two years, as CEO Jeff Bezos promotes increasingly flashier schemes around drone delivery, TV shows, mobile phones, and publishing.令人难以置信的是，如今许多企业仍在用于纸质发票、电子邮件和支票来交易用品和材料。

但美国两家仅次于的电子商务公司eBay和亚马逊（Amazon）都没专心于这个极大的机遇。这两家公司都运营电子交易市场，但它们专心于面向消费者的产品，而不是批发产品和商务用品。亚马逊运营的杂货网站AmazonSupply的测试已展开两年。该公司首席执行官杰夫o贝佐斯大大发售各种更有眼球的商业计划，领域涵括无人机车主、电视节目、手机和出版发行等。

In recent years, a number of U.S. startups have sprung up to fill the gap. Joor andNuOrder do it for the fashion industry.Handshake and Tradeshift do it for a variety of businesses.近年来，B2B电子商务领域的美国初创公司如雨后春笋般经常出现，空缺了这一空白。Joor 和NuOrder主要针对时尚行业。Handshake和Tradeshift则为各种企业获取服务。But there is one true giant in the category: Alibaba, the Chinese retail darling that last week revealed plans for a $21.12 billion initial public offering, which has dominated in B2B e-commerce. I was reminded of this over the weekend while listening to Planet Money’s entertaining explainer of the Alibaba wholesale market. Through Alibaba.com and 1688.com, the company provides to people everywhere access to the Chinese supply chain. This means tinkerers, builders, entrepreneurs, and small businesses can order custom motors and parts from Chinese factories without having to travel there, find a scout, and forge a relationship with a manufacturer before doing business. It opens up the world of international suppliers to people who wouldn’t normally have access to it. They can buy in bulk through Alibaba, which acts as a trusted third party, vouching for the transaction.但是该领域有一个确实巨头——中国零售宠儿阿里巴巴集团（Alibaba），它是B2B电子商务领域的一支主导力量。

上周阿里巴巴透漏，其计划通过首次公开发行筹措211.2亿美元。周末，我在听得金钱星球（Planet Money）节目[译者录：该节目由美国全国公共广播电台（NPR）制作]中有关阿里巴巴在线批发市场的有意思介绍，其中之后提及了阿里巴巴的主导地位。该公司通过Alibaba.com和1688.com向全球用户获取转入中国供应链的渠道。

这意味著修理工、建筑商、企业家和小企业都可以从中国的工厂采购自定义的发动机和零件，而不用特地回到中国找寻联系人与制造商创建关系，然后开展业务。很多人一般来说没条件认识国际范围内的供应商，而阿里巴巴为他们关上了一扇门。他们可以通过阿里巴巴展开批量出售所须要产品，阿里巴巴则作为不受信任的第三方对交易的顺利完成获取确保。Alibaba has an advantage here, because of its proximity to so many of the world’s manufacturing assets. The reason Amazon hasn’t focused on it? Because it doesn’t have access to those sellers. “Much of it is representative of the differences in their markets, and where Chinese products have typically fallen in the supply chain,” says Mark Mahaney, an e-commerce analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Amazon AMZN -1.17% and eBay EBAY 0.61% simply have access to different wholesale and B2B products than Alibaba does.阿里巴巴的一个优势在于其在地理上附近众多的制造业企业。

亚马逊为什么没专心于此？因为它没渠道认识这些卖家。加拿大皇家银行资本市场（RBC Capital Markets）的电子商务分析师马克o马哈尼回应：“这主要说明了这两大巨头各自市场的差异，中国产品一般来说正处于供应链中。

”只是亚马逊和eBay平台的批发产品和B2B产品与阿里巴巴的有所不同而已。The majority of Alibaba’s revenue comes from its consumer-facing sites, such as AliExpress, Tmall, Taobao, and Juhusu. Wholesale represented 11.8% of Alibaba’s overall revenue in fiscal 2014, and most of that is from buyers outside of China. It is a small piece of Alibaba’s portfolio, relatively speaking, but that’s only because the company is such a behemoth. Alibaba’s wholesale revenue in fiscal 2014 was $1 billion, versus $8 billion from its retail operations. The company processed a total of $296 billion worth of sales on its platform in its last full fiscal year.阿里巴巴的大部分收益来自于其面向消费者的电商网站，如全球速卖通、天猫商城、淘宝和聚划算。杂货业务占到阿里巴巴2014财年总收入的11.8％，其中大部分买家来自于中国以外地区。相对而言，这只是阿里巴巴业务人组的较小一部分，不过这主要是因为阿里巴巴规模可观。

阿里巴巴2014财年杂货业务营收为10亿美元，而来自于务的营收为80亿美元。在上一个财年中，该公司在其电商平台上处置的交易价值总额超过2960亿美元。

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