People spent a whopping US$1.55 trillion shopping online in China last year -- a 16.5% increase over last year, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. That’s more than 2.5 times what Americans were forecast to spend on internet merchants in 2019.
As consumers in wealthier cities grow increasingly accustomed to shopping online, China’s ecommerce giants are shifting their focus to untapped markets.
Pinduoduo has managed to challenge the dominance of Alibaba and JD.com by enticing people from smaller cities to start shopping online. The battlefield has now moved to rural villages, where online sales jumped more than 20% in the first half last year. Unlike urbanites, many rural Chinese residents have never shopped online.
During last year’s Singles’ Day shopping extravaganza, Alibaba said Juhuasuan -- its shopping platform targeting lower-tier cities -- received more than a million orders each on some 7,000 items.
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)