According to iResearch data, the GMV of China’s B2C online shopping market attained Yuan 2.6 trillion in 2016, rising 31.6% from 2015, much higher than the C2C market’s growth of 15.6%. Meanwhile, B2C market took up 55.3% in the whole online shopping market in China and its market share experienced a YoY growth of 3.2%.
For the near future, iResearch forecast sees the share of B2C market will keep expanding in the near future.
C2C market will also have great room for development thanks to its large market size and full categories of products,says the market research and consultancy company.
tmall.com held the largest market share in the B2C segment, while JD.com, suning.com and vip.com experienced an increase in their market share in 2016, compared The What’s more, the growth rates of JD.com, suning.com and vip.com were all higher than 31.6%, the growth rate of the whole B2C market.
Some segments grew over the average in 2016
China’s online shopping enjoyed fast development during 2011 and 2015. Per capita online shopping expenditure was about 9,207 Yuan in 2015, 2.3 times of the figure in 2011. Under the background, cross-border e-commerce embraced mass opportunities.
As China’s government ease the import e-commerce policies in the second half of 2014, a great number of companies flooded into import e-commerce market. In 2015, the GMV of China’s import e-commerce market attained Yuan 118.43 Bn with a growth rate of 111.9%. Meanwhile, the export e-commerce market was also prosperous. 3C and electronic products were the core best-selling category and Amazon, New Egg and Ebay were main export e-commerce platforms.
In 2016, cross-border import retailing, fresh food e-commerce and e-commerce services provider grew much faster than the whole online shopping market in China.
China fresh food e-commerce developed rapidly with an annual increase rate higher than 80% in recent years, while its penetration rate in farm products was only 3.4%, indicating that it still had great potential in the field. iResearch forecast that GMV of China’s fresh food e-commerce market will top Yuan 200Bn with a penetration rate of 7% in farm products by 2018.
In 2016, the market value of China’s brand e-commerce service providers exceeded Yuan 40Bn experiencing a 66% growth. As more and more traditional brands, especially foreign brands, started their business on Chinese e-commerce platforms, China’s brand e-commerce service providers market will keep on growing over the whole online shopping rate. iResearch estimates its market value to surpass Yuan 1trill by 2018.
iResearch believes that if the policies remain favorable, cross-border e-commerce market will keep its steady growth in the following years.
Winning strategies for a mature and somehow settled market
With the online shopping market getting increasingly mature, underscores iResearch, the quality of goods and services will become a vital factor in shoppers’ decision making process, which will serve as the core engine of online shopping’s development.
In this mature context e-commerce companies expand their good coverage, improve their deliver and after sale services but also developed cross-border online shopping and rural e-commerce. But not only. Some of the online e-commerce players some companies started to explore maternal & kids market, medical care market and home decoration market, which will be the new development accelerator of online shopping market.
Given that e-commerce giants such as Alibaba and JD has obtained large market share, the structure of traditional e-commerce market is to some extent settled. Thus, vertical e-commerce will be the new cut-in point thanks to its precise positioning and professional services. In 2016, cross-border e-commerce, 3C e-commerce and maternal & child e-commerce have rapid development. In the first half of 2016, 119 vertical e-commerce companies got financing, most in angle round and A round. iResearch thinks that vertical e-commerce is at its initial stage of development, it is expected to grow fast in the near future and become one main trend in the Chinese online shopping sector.
Image over the headline.- © Eastwind
