“Shanghai resident Grace Tng buys almost everything she needs online, from groceries to makeup, as she finds it more convenient than going to a store.
The 29-year-old arts curator who moved to the Chinese city 18 months ago from Singapore says she shops on the internet a lot more now than when she was living in the city state.
“In China, I think almost anything can be found online,” Tng told CNBC. “Here there are little shops all along the streets and I may not be able to get everything at one go, so shopping online is actually more convenient for me.”
Tng is one of millions of shoppers in China who are turning to the web, fueling a booming $64 billion online retail market.
Increasing internet subscribers and mobile phone users along with rising incomes and an influx of foreign consumer products into China have led to a rapid expansion of the e-commerce market, which was virtually non-existent half a decade ago.
An example of this boom is Tmall, China’s business to consumer or B2C website, which according to market research firm Euromonitor International, will overtake U.S. online retail giant Amazon in sales to become the world’s largest internet retailer by 2016. Tmall sales are projected to hit $100 billion that year, compared to $94 billion for Amazon.
Tmall, run by China’s second-largest Internet company Alibaba Group, has already overtaken popular consumer to consumer (C2C) portal or online auctioneer, eBayin sales this year, according to Euromonitor. Tmall’s sales are projected to hit $32.5 billion in 2012, compared to $27.7 billion for eBay.”
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