There is nothing new about online shopping, but the amount of online shopping that hits record highs every year is worth paying attention to.

With the rapid development of China’s online technology and the steady growth of disposable income of Chinese residents, online shopping has become an indispensable consumption channel for Chinese Internet users. Online shopping users are also spending more and more on online shopping. From 2013 to 2018, the value of online shopping transactions in China increased from 267.9 billion yuan to 5.737 trillion yuan, a compound growth rate of 84.6%.

By 2019, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on January 17, the nationwide online retail sales for the whole year of 2019 were 1,062.4 billion yuan, an increase of 16.5% over the previous year. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods were 852.9 billion yuan, an increase of 19.5%, an increase of 2.3 percentage points from the previous year.

The Ministry of Commerce stated that China has the world’s largest group of Internet users, with a scale of over 800 million people. The rapid development of online shopping in China has had a profound impact on the development of consumers, enterprises and even the entire national economy. The increase of online shopping has strongly promoted consumption and effectively stimulated the growth of domestic demand. The advancement of online shopping has promoted the advance of the manufacturing industry. The e-commerce platform empowers the manufacturing industry through the C2M model and improves the efficiency of the manufacturing supply chain. The expansion of online shopping is also conducive to promoting the addition of other supporting industries such as logistics and driving employment.

How is the improvement of the online shopping market today? What are the online shopping behaviors of users? What is the status quo of the progress of e-commerce platforms?

1. Category analysis of online shopping products

Specifically, among the categories of goods purchased online by Chinese online users, the proportion of toiletries (40.8%) is the highest, followed by beauty make-up (33.1%), food and beverage (32.2%), and household products (31.7%), besides digital Home appliances, clothing bags, fresh fruits, maternal and child products, and nutrition and health products.

2. Analysis of the frequency of online shopping consumption

Chinese netizens shop online more frequently. The survey shows that in 2019, about 58.4% of Chinese netizens made multiple online purchases per month, and 24.2% made online purchases every few months, compared with 3.6% of netizens who only bought online once in many years. Ai Media Consulting analysts believe that because the main online shopping products of Chinese netizens are daily necessities, food and beverages, and clothing and bags, especially daily commodities and food products are consumed faster. The frequency of online purchases by users is correspondingly higher.

3. Analysis of online shopping consumption motivation

For Chinese online shopping users, the main reason they choose online shopping is that the price of online shopping products is cheaper than offline shopping, accounting for about 25.27%; secondly, it is more convenient for online shopping, accounting for 22.3%; also Some online shopping users believe that online shopping platforms can provide a wealth of product categories, and online shopping usually has more preferential activities.

4. Analysis of online shopping consumption level

From 2017 to 2018, the online consumption index of Chinese mid-to-high-end online shopping users showed an increasing trend, and this group of people contributed more to the Chinese online shopping consumer market. As the disposable income of Chinese residents grows year by year, and the middle and high-end consumer groups continue to expand, the size of China’s online shopping market will also continue to expand.

5. Expectation analysis of online shopping consumption

More than half of those who have no online shopping experience said that they would try online shopping in the future. Among them, 45.45% of them would occasionally buy online, and 18.18% still said they would not buy online in the future. Online shopping has penetrated into most parts of the country. With the development of economy and technology, more people will make online shopping in the future. On the other hand, because online shopping is closely connected with advanced technologies such as the Internet, computers, mobile phones, and mobile payments, it is still difficult for some people with weak acceptance to make online purchases.

6. Analysis of online shopping competition formats

In terms of capital background, most of China’s top online shopping platforms are invested by Alibaba and Tencent. The investment background of platforms such as Taobao, Suning Tesco, Freefish, and Tmall is mainly Alibaba, while Tencent has invested in platforms such as JD.com, Vipshop, and Pinduoduo. In addition, NetEase, Didi, SF, etc. have also stepped into the online shopping industry in various ways.

7. Analysis of market share of shopping websites

From the perspective of China’s mainstream e-commerce model, before 2016, China’s main online shopping platform was the C2C model, that is, the Taobao platform. However, in recent years, the proportion of B2C market transactions has increased year by year, and in 2016 it surpassed that of C2C, and continues to grow.

8. Analysis of user penetration rate of shopping websites

From the perspective of user penetration rankings, Taobao has the highest penetration rate, reaching 53.3%. This is followed by JD.com, Pinduoduo and Vipshop, with penetration rates of 20.6%, 19.4%, and 15.6%, respectively. The penetration rate of APPs such as Tmall, Freefish, and Suning Tesco are less than 10%. Alibaba Group has an absolute market advantage in China’s e-commerce industry. The user penetration rates of its platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, and Xianyu have entered China’s TOP10.

9. User portraits of major shopping websites

From the perspective of the age distribution of Chinese online shopping users, about 33.3% of users are aged 31-40 years, 25.3% of users are 26-30 years old, and 11.9% of users are between 19 and 25 years old. As a result, Chinese online shopping users tend to be younger, with online shopping users aged 19 to 40 accounting for 70.5%.

10. Overall satisfaction analysis of online shopping

About 51.2% of online shopping users indicated that they were satisfied with the evaluation of China’s online shopping environment, followed by 31.7% of users who said that they were average and 7.4% said they were very satisfied. Overall, Chinese online shopping users are satisfied with the current online shopping environment.