E-commerce market of China has seen a massive growth in the last year. According to the report of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) the e-commerce market has booked transactions of worth $190 billion USD in the last year, 66.5 per cent up from the previous year, 2011. In 2012, around 242 million internet users made an online purchase, and 6.1 per cent of the total retail sales of the consumer goods were credited to e-commerce transactions.
The statistics show that the development in the e-commerce market was largely driven by the mobile users. In the last 6 months of the year 2012, most of the online shoppers used their mobile devices to browse and purchase merchandise, and more interestingly, more than half of the shoppers used merchandiser’s mobile applications to browse and purchase rather than accessing the website of the merchandise.
The report also portrays an image about the preferred time of the customers for shopping online. It showed a general trend that most of the people browse and purchase goods online while at home, or at work or travelling or waiting in queues. Most amusingly, many of the Smartphone users replied that their Smartphones have replaced their PCs to a great extent. The travel friendliness of the Smartphones can be attributed for this shift.
The report also highlights the importance of social media in the growth of e-commerce sales. 41.8 per cent of the shoppers have reported of seeing the first information about the product or a promo on the social networking or media sites. It also indicates the increased buying power of the shoppers. According to the report, on an average each shopper has spent around $843 USD, which is 25 per cent high than $211 USD a year before. 81.8 per cent of the online shoppers purchased clothing and shoes; general merchandise and consumer electronics made 31.6 per cent and 29.6 per cent of the total sales respectively.
At present, Alibaba, with its two portals, Tmall and Taobao, rules the e-commerce market in China. In the last year, the website recorded a transaction of $170 billion USD and is growing first to become the first online retail company to handle transactions of $1 trillion a year.