U.S. manufacturing and wholesale distribution sales reached $15.12 trillion in 2025, but the most consequential change in the B2B market is not how much companies are buying. It is how they are buying.

Total sales increased 0.4% in 2025, following 1.0% growth in 2024 and 0.4% in 2023, according to Digital Commerce 360 analysis and U.S. Department of Commerce data. Those modest gains stand in sharp contrast to the post-pandemic rebound in 2021 and 2022, when sales surged 14.3% and 14.5%, respectively, as supply chains restarted, inventories were rebuilt and pricing rose amid inflation.

US B2B sales growth in 2025

Since 2022, overall U.S. B2B sales growth has stalled. Beneath that flat top line, however, digital commerce has expanded at a double-digit pace. Ecommerce, online marketplaces, and e-procurement systems are rapidly absorbing transactions that flowed through sales representatives, phone orders, faxed purchase orders, and manual purchasing processes.

The result is a two-speed B2B economy: muted overall demand paired with a rapid structural shift toward digital channels.

After declining 2.6% in 2020 during COVID-19 disruptions, U.S. manufacturing and distributor sales rebounded from $11.36 trillion in 2020 to $12.98 trillion in 2021 and $14.86 trillion in 2022. From 2022 through 2025, total sales rose just 1.8% cumulatively. The explosive recovery period has given way to stabilization marked by cautious buying patterns, tighter inventory control and more disciplined capital spending across industrial sectors.

Quarterly data from 2025 underscores the slowdown. First-quarter sales rose 2.1% year over year. Second-quarter sales declined 0.9%. Growth in the third and fourth quarters was flat at 0.1% and 0.3%. Distributors and manufacturers have repeatedly described this environment as one marked by tariff-related price sensitivity, slower project starts, inventory normalization and more deliberate purchasing by industrial buyers.

Yet even as overall demand has leveled off; digital transactions continue to expand at a healthy clip.

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Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at mark@digitalcommerce360.com. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube.