Amid rising trade tensions and steep tariffs set to impact much of the Asian sourcing landscape, some brands are turning to markets closer to home and probing the Western world for opportunity.
That’s according to NuOrder’s 2025 State of B2B E-Commerce Report, which surveyed more than 7,000 brands and 500,000 global retailers about the industry’s current and future prospects. According to the wholesale technology platform, 2025 will see brands favoring markets with lower barriers to entry (both tariff and non-tariff related), as well as established infrastructure for sales and growth.
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Not surprisingly, some brands are hitting pause on expansion efforts (11 percent said they aren’t pursuing global growth at all) and just 34 percent plan to expand into new geographic markets for sales this year.
A small number (11 percent) also said they were exploring nearshoring and reshoring in order to drive down dependency on foreign supply chains. More than one-fifth of respondents said they were intent on diversifying their supplier portfolios to mitigate risk, and 25 percent said they are developing contingency plans in case of further disruptions.
Perhaps predictably, 2025 will be a year for strengthening bonds with trusted allies; 43 percent of survey-takers said they want to focus on building strong partnerships with their existing suppliers in order to promote flexibility and collaboration above all else—a means of guarding against disruption.
When it comes to broadening sales, e-commerce firms are homing in on North America and Western Europe, NuOrder’s survey showed. Of the one-third of brands that are planning to expand sales globally, 41 percent are partnering with new suppliers, distributors, agents and showrooms, making improvements to logistics and supply chain infrastructure (30 percent) and addressing compliance and regulatory requirements (30 percent).
More than one-quarter of the (29 percent) are also looking into creating localized products, pricing structures and marketing strategies, while 19 percent are adopting new technology to help manage cross-border operations and 17 percent are hiring regional teams to provide expertise on the ground in new markets.
Notably, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are the markets execs feel most bullish about probing this year, even in spite of America’s wobbly stock market and tensions between the regional trade partners. In fact, 63 percent of companies that planned any expansion this year are looking to North America, and they expect to reap rewards; those respondents said they expect to see 86-percent sales growth this year.
Western Europe represented a distant second for those bent on bringing sales to new markets, with 40 percent saying expansion into the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Benelux nations (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) is on the docket. Executives moving into those markets expect to see 13-percent growth.
Twenty-three percent of respondents pointed to Latin America as a market for expansion, while 20 percent said East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan) was a market to focus on this year.
While global brands are continuing to pursue growth, they’re certainly not as bullish as they could be about their prospects; only 31 percent are planning to launch new product categories or SKUs, and only 17 percent said they have plans to up their operational capacity by investing in new warehouses and production facilities.
“Supply chain resilience is a key concern, with brands focusing on supplier partnerships, demand forecasting, and contingency planning rather than structural changes like nearshoring or reshoring,” NuOrder analysts wrote.
With major market uncertainty becoming table stakes and no end in sight to the trade turbulence, brands are looking for safe bets where they can find them.
“Overall, brands are safeguarding rather than expanding, favoring established markets, direct retail relationships, and strategies that balance stability with long-term control,” the report said.
