The Market
Why sell online in China?
Today 700m+ people in China buy products online. The digital e-commerce landscape is very mature with fast delivery and the average Chinese consumer buys everything from napkins to Swiss watches on their phones. With another 700m potential customers yet to go online, no brand can afford to disregard the Chinese market.
Why now?
If your brand is well established on your local market the chances are high that Chinese consumers already buys your products from professional buyers in China or retail stores in your country. However, you need to take control of your brand image and pricing towards Chinese end consumers and pave way for the future expansion.
How to begin?
Your journey to consistent online sales in China starts with establishing online stores on the various e-commerce and social media platforms. To ensure that we understand your brand and your needs, please use the ”contact us” form to get in touch.
The total e-commerce market
E-commerce is a major driver of China’s retail economy, with sales growing more than 30% in 2019 to reach $1.989 trillion. 25% of all China’s retail sales occur online, by far the highest rate in the world. More than half of all online sales happens in China due to the strong links to mobil first adaption, digital payment solutions and social media. Today global luxury brands such as Gucci, Givenchy, Tiffanys, LV and Moncler are all present with e-stores on various Chinese e-commerce platforms. The total e-commerce market is forecasted for continuous growth and reach 3.85 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023.
The largest marketplaces
Tmall.com (天猫) is a business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail operated in China by Alibaba Group. It is a platform to sell brand name goods to consumers in mainland China with over 700m users. The platform has around 65% of all online sales traffic. It’s Tmall Global holds around 32% of the cross-border e-commerce market share.
JD.com (京东) is a B2C e-commerce company in China. It uses ts own logistics company and is known for fast delivery. The platform has around 300m users and 25% of all online sales traffic.
Taobao (淘宝网) is a Chinese online shopping website owned by Alibaba. Taobao Marketplace facilitates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) retail by providing a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores that mainly cater to consumers in Chinese-speaking regions. Buyers can assess seller backgrounds by information available on the site, including ratings, comments and complaints.
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging website. It is similar to Twitter and has more than 500 million monthly users. In addition to ads, Weibo allows brands and other content providers to live stream and operate its own pages that offers e-commerce to its followers.
Douyin (抖音) is a booming short-video app in China. According to Statista, as of February 2022, Douyin reported having 86.8% of its users livestreaming content in China and its users spent at least 89 minutes watching videos on the platform each day. Different from other platforms, Douyin’s advantage lies in the content ecology, and its unique short video + livestreaming combination model has also become the marketing strategy of many businesses. Short videos are responsible for seeding and can attract traffic for livestreaming, effectively stimulating user demand and conversion efficiency.
Vipshop (唯品会) is a Chinese company that operates the e-commerce website VIP.com based in Guangzhou. Vipshop rose to prominence through its success in convincing brands to use it as a means to sell unsold inventory similar to an outlet, allowing it to sell authentic branded products below standard prices. It has around 30 million monthly active users.
