E-commerce trade with China is developing rapidly. According to the report from AliResearch, which belongs to Alibaba, e-commerce trade will reach 1.8 trillion USD by 2020, making up 37.6 percent of total exports. The e-commerce are reflecting import increased rate are highly than export value.
E-commerce trading in China is evolving faster than import and export trade
Global trade has slowed in 2015 while trading in e-commerce goods and services in China has evolved faster than the import and export trades. The accessibility of e-commerce trading within the market is increasing year on year. In 2015, e-commerce trading with China hit 722 billion USD, a 28 percent increase compared to the previous year and it is forecasted to reach 1.8 trillion USD by 2020. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2015-2020 is forecast to be 20.1%.
The import trade is growing faster than exports
Although e-commerce trading with China is export-oriented, the import trade grows rapidly. The volumes of export and import trade account for 83.1 and 16.9 percent e-commerce trade. The proportion of import trade is expected to rise to 25% by 2020.
Retail sales will account for more than 30 percent e-commerce trade by 2020
China’s cross-border e-commerce relies mainly on the business-to-business (B2B) model which accounted for 84.3% in 2015. In contrast, the retail sales accounted for a mere 15.7% which is comparably lower. However, it is predicted to hit more than 542 billion USD in 2020 with 37 percent growth annually. The percentage of retail sales e-commerce trade will rise from 15.7% in 2015, to more than 30% by 2020.
Online retail sales will hit more than 1.5 trillion USD by 2020
Online retail sales have also grown considerably over the last few years. AliResearch forecasted that the online retail sales will exceed 1.5 trillion USD in 2020, making up 20.7% of retail sales of consumer goods. The import sales of e-commerce trade will be 226 billion USD , accounting for 15 percent of China’s online retail sales.
Consumers in China prefer purchasing American import commodities through e-commerce retail trade
As e-commerce retail trade becomes more and more convenient, commodities from many countries are widely recognized by Chinese consumers. The top ten countries in 2015 that have e-commerce trade with China are the USA, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Australia, the Netherlands, France, U.K., Italy and New Zealand.
On average, consumers purchase commodities from two countries. Shanghai has the highest per capita consumption among the cities in China
On average, consumers buy the commodities from two countries. However, some consumers have been recorded buying commodities from 18 countries! Chinese consumers get the goods from all over the world through e-commerce trading. City consumption power (CCP) reports Shanghai to have the highest per capita consumption in e-commerce retail trade among all the cities in China. As for the commodity themselves baby products, cosmetics and health foods are the most popular imports. Nowadays, Chinese consumers pay more attention to health and food safety; hence e-commerce trade has become an important channel for providing these commodities.
The four main areas driving growth in China’s e-commerce trade are: advanced techniques, consumption upgrade, industry support and trade assurance
AliResearch found that the advanced techniques, consumption upgrade, industry support, and trade assurance are the four main factors, driving growth of e-commerce trade in China. With regard to advanced techniques, AliResearch indicated that the increasing demands for C2B/C2M facilitate the cash flow payment system, improve logistics efficiency and save costs; accelerating e-commerce trading. Regarding the consumption upgrade, it is predicted that there will be 2 hundred million middle-class families in China by 2020. Chinese consumers are eager for well-designed, inexpensive, customized commodities. E-commerce sales are expected to make up 42% of individual consumption. By the end of June, 2016, there were 448 million online shoppers in China and 63% of them go shopping on the internet.
SMEs in China are eager for e-commerce trade
For the industry support, there are about 5 million externally oriented SMEs in China which create 60 percent of total value of exports. These SMEs are eager to trade goods and services on the e-commerce market. As for the trade assurance, the enterprises obtain real transaction data through the services including the customs, commodity inspection, tax and foreign exchange provided by China’s foreign trade integrated service platform. It is beneficial for the enterprises to build a global online trading credit system and win the buyer’s trust worldwide.