B2B e-commerce marketplaces and MSMES: Evidence of global value chain facilitation?

Maxime Ladrière, Kathryn Lundquist and Qing Ye

No ERSD-2022-7, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: In theory, e-commerce marketplaces connect buyers and sellers, open trade opportunities, and reduce transaction costs thereby creating opportunities for more inclusive trade and even GVC participation, especially for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Further, there is some evidence that MSMEs are more likely to use e-commerce marketplaces than large firms given these websites reduce search frictions and transaction costs, which can be relatively more beneficial for smaller firms. This discussion paper explores non-traditional data to investigate whether e-commerce marketplaces may contribute to MSME GVC participation. By looking at the development of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce marketplaces, the gross merchandise value (GMV) of regional e-commerce marketplaces, and MSMEs' overall participation in B2B e-commerce marketplaces, descriptive statistics are gathered that contributes to the overall discussion on this topic. This discussion paper also links B2B e-commerce marketplaces with GVC facilitation through a novel approach of cataloguing these platforms' merchandise and finds that on average, roughly one third of B2B e-commerce marketplace listings are intermediate goods.

Keywords: Micro; Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (MSME); SME; e-commerce; marketplaces; global value chains (GVC) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 L81 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-int and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/254330/1/1802116672.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd20227

DOI: 10.30875/25189808-2022-7

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().