Alibaba, China’s hottest internet company, has built a massive ecommerce business without selling a single pair of jeans, washing machine, or book. What it sells instead are consumers, and it sells them in droves to retailers who pay for clicks, keywords, ad views, and sales.

But while Alibaba makes handsome profits from its Taobao and Tmall shopping platforms – the company earned net income of $3.7bn in its 2014 financial year – many of the small businesses that make up Alibaba’s main customer base do not.

As Alibaba looks toward an initial public offering later this year that could raise $20bn-$25bn, some of its customers are beginning to rethink their business models amid a shakeout that has slashed the number of small and medium-sized sellers on China’s internet.