Steady growth in China's e-com sector: Report

A steady growth in China’s e-commerce sector continues as online shops further integrate with physical stores, according to 100ec.cn, which said new retail and social e-commerce have become the driving forces for the boom.

In the first half of 2018, total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 18 trillion yuan, up 9.4 per cent year-on-year.

Online retail market transactions rose 30.1 per cent in the period to 4.08 trillion yuan, or 22.7 per cent of the total, a report by the e-commerce research platform said.

Big e-commerce companies have shifted attention from online to offline and brought a new, multi-functional shopping experience to customers, an upgrade in the retail sector, a Chinese government news website quoted director of 100ec.cn Cao Lei as saying.

E-commerce on social networking platforms is rising as well in the retail industry as people increasingly use mobile phones and tablets to replace computer-based online shopping, so group-buying has gained traction, according to Cao.

The number of online shoppers in China in the first half of 2018 totalled 569 million users, an increase of 10.2 per cent over the same period in 2017, even as growth in the online shopping population gradually slowed, the report added.