The Role Of Big Tech In International Trade: Platforms As Facilitators Of Cross-Border E-Commerce

This paper explores the pivotal role that major online marketplaces—such as Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay to name a few of them—play in shaping modern trade and e-commerce. It explains how these titans leverage strategic and economic mechanisms to pivot their global dominance while enhancing their global trade efficiency and market integration. Using a mix of methods, this study investigates recent trade data, econometric insights of these companies and industry reports in order to examine their economies of scales, network effects and transaction cost efficiencies. The findings indicate that these companies facilitate significant trade volume growth, with cross-border e-commerce projected to grow at a staggering 25.1% CAGR from 2022 to 2028, driven by platforms balancing buyer-seller ecosystems. The second part of the paper focuses on Amazon as a case study and it outlines how the company’s logistical infrastructure and use of AI-driven models have underpinned its sustained global dominance in e-commerce. For instance, the U.S. accounts for roughly 47.5% of Amazon’s global site traffic. However, not all impacts have been positive—according to a 2016 inquiry by the European Commission, 38% of surveyed retailers reported being affected by Amazon’s restrictive practices and strategies. This raises broader question marks and insecurities about fair competition in digital markets and e-commerce; and such insights are especially valuable for economists and policymakers interested in how digital trade is reshaping global commerce because as this new paradigm evolves, it increasingly challenges long-standing models of international trade and forces a rethinking of competitive dynamics in the digital age.