Jun

1

China will soon become the largest online retail market in the world.

China had 119 million online shoppers, with total online sales value rising 53.7 percent year-on-year to 782.56 billion yuan at the end of 2011.

Quoted from capitalvue

I believe the key for this big change is the ease of payment now widely adopted by many online retailers in the recent years. Most retailers had used complicated online payment systems that gave shoppers a big headache and deterred most shoppers in the past. Now what is very welcome is payment upon delivery (Amazon seems to be vital in first developing a large coverage nationwide). With this payment system, one can pay with either cash or credit card to the courier (most go by motorcycles and carry a mobile-phone capable credit card device). Most retailers void shipping charges if the purchase is above 40 yuan. The delivery is fast, too - around big cities it takes about two days.

Reportedly, the largest retailers are: tmall.com, 360buy.com, and amazon.cn. Tmall is the largest and basically a remake from the old house-of-small-retailers taobao.com. In my opinion, it still carries some of the old headache and credibility issues to shoppers. Amazon is a distant 3rd. Although it is very shopper-friendly, it doesn't have the variety of goods as big as the others. To me it is a shame that it doesn't try to leverage its overseas strength to bring in more imported goods. Being the second, 360buy seems to be doing very well in balancing user-friendliness, variety and credibility.

I am a keen online shopper in recent years and do that whenever possible. I believe this trend should cause serious damage to the businesses of brick-mortar retailers a few years down the road.


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2 Comments so far

  1. douglas roberts dimick on June 1, 2012 7:51 pm

    Hi LJ,

    Based on my time here in China these past six years, your conclusion provides a partial answer, perhaps primary. Still, both the predatory pricing schemes in local and brand markets as well as a cumbersome when not congested transportation system — albeit for the rich — would also appear to fuel the online craze.

    The mother of my littlest sister (Joy, age 7) did some of our Christmas shopping online this year. The initial ideas and gestation period of purchases born were conceived within often crowded, usually dirty, always little-local-street and open-air markets a la small, independent retailers.

    A testament to the cause for democratizing this SOE crushing dictatorial regime, yes?

    dr

  2. david on June 4, 2012 12:58 am

    On ebay, you can buy stuff from China for 99 cents, but the shipping fee is 56 dollars….:/ kinda queers the the “good deal” feeling……………

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