Small Business Week is a time to acknowledge the enormous resilience of American small businesses. Last year, many business and civic leaders wondered how entrepreneurs would survive an unprecedented pandemic and economic slowdown. Yet, many small business owners rose to the challenge through determination and innovation.

Now, many businesses are evaluating how they can move forward and take advantage of what many experts believe could be an economic boom. Based on our experience, it’s clear that there are enormous opportunities for businesses willing to go digital and go global.  These opportunities are available for large corporations and small and medium-sized businesses through technological innovation.

A recent Euromonitor study found that the global e-commerce market is poised to expand by $1 trillion by 2025. Meanwhile, rising consumer spending power and enthusiasm for online shopping are driving growth in markets like China. Now is the time for U.S. businesses to take advantage of these opportunities, and we stand ready to support them.

On March 25th, Alibaba hosted a virtual summit to educate North American brands looking to grow their international sales by selling cross border on our marketplace, Tmall Global. An important part of this education includes helping brands protect themselves as they expand into global markets. Some might not be aware that Alibaba has a robust intellectual property protection program in place for large and small brands alike. This month we were pleased to accept an award from the World Trademark Review for our achievements.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently described Alibaba  as “a portal to millions of buyers and sellers around the world.” Our mission – to make it easy to do business anywhere – is what drives us to work with U.S. businesses to help them find growth and new consumers around the world.

Sincerely,
Michael Evans, President and Director, Alibaba Group