Writer: Jordan Sprogis
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Cristian Lopez
Key Takeaways
- Wix just announced a strategic integration with major B2B marketplace Alibaba.com, further proving that Wix is moving beyond site building into full eCommerce infrastructure.
- Wix may dominate the microbusiness crowd, but there’s still opportunity for hosts in verticals where Wix doesn’t focus, like compliance, customization, or dev-first environments.
Wix officially announced a strategic partnership this week with the world’s largest B2B wholesale marketplace, Alibaba.com. Now, 287 million of Wix’s digital entrepreneurs, businesses, and SMEs can expand their global reach across more than 200 countries.
The industry will increasingly see SMBs wake up and realize they don’t just need a host; they want a single platform where everything they need lives under one roof. And that goes well beyond the traditional hosting model.
“Our collaboration with Alibaba.com takes [our users] a step further,” said Nir Zohar, President of Wix on July 2. “It opens powerful new opportunities for our users to tap into international wholesale markets.”
A HostingAdvice study found that more than half of Americans don’t know what web hosting is, despite it being the backbone of their own hobbies, businesses, and workspaces. This further proves that the masses — everyday users, agencies, and developers alike — want simple, all-in-one solutions.
Inside the Industry Context
The Wix and Alibaba partnership highlights three core features: They can become verified Global Gold Suppliers (GGS) on Alibaba.com, have access to curated wholesale sourcing marketplace, and create branded D2C and B2B storefronts in conjunction with Wix’s seller tools.
All of this is backed by Single Sign-On (SSO), which makes it easier for users to switch between Wix and Alibaba’s marketplace. It may seem like a small win to not have to remember yet another password, but it’s a key factor in when users need to sync data and don’t have the time to authenticate between platforms.
In other words, no admin work.
It’s as Kuo Zhang, President of Alibaba.com, said: “Our partnership with Wix simplifies the complexities of international trade, offering small businesses streamlined solutions for sourcing, selling, and expanding their global reach.”
Wix has long positioned itself as the eCommerce platform, especially as of late with its recent rollouts like enhanced inventory management, AI-powered adaptive content, and its recent acquisition of Base44, which offers vibe coding.
This partnership with Alibaba, though, takes Wix to a whole new level. Since 1999, Alibaba has been a global resource for connecting manufacturers, wholesalers, and suppliers with business buyers to support bulk orders, private labeling, and procurement.
Now, Wix users can build direct-to-consumer (D2C) and B2B storefronts just by downloading the Alibaba.com Seller App via the Wix Marketplace. From there, they can pretty much customize their merchant-marketplace experience, including sourcing and white-labeling products.
This level of business enablement wasn’t always Wix’s identity, but it does explain the platform’s explosive growth in recent years:
- 2009: approx. 1 million users
- 2015: approx. 50 million users
- 2021: approx. 200 million users
- 2025: approx. 287 million users, with about 5.3 million from Q2 2025 alone
For the eCommerce space, COVID-19 was a blessing because now Wix owns the website-builder niche, holding about 44% of the global market.
This Could Make Indie Hosts Nervous
It’s natural for traditional hosts to see a headline like this and wonder how they’ll compete. But Wix taking the initiative here means it’s signaling which trends it’s following — and in doing so, it’s basically offering a free playbook for other hosts.
There are a few things hosts can take away from this news. It does create more competition: Wix is once again proving itself to be the easy-to-use, all-in-one business-building platform, which means smaller hosts have to keep up and carve out their own niche. But like COVID-19, that could be a blessing in disguise.
While Wix is targeting the next wave of entrepreneurs and startups, other hosts can find their own space in different verticals — or identify areas where Wix falls short, such as compliance or local SEO.
So while Wix leads the “quick to launch” crowd, there’s still a strong need for agencies, developers, resellers, gaming servers, nonprofits, and compliance-heavy sectors, all of whom need something they can trust.
