Global consultancy Bain & Company predicts China’s e-commerce market will reach annual online sales of 1.5 trillion yuan (US$238.18 billion) by next year, making the country the world’s top e-commerce industry.

Online shoppers are expected to jump to 60 per cent with spending to increase to 40 per cent. When that happens, online sales will make up seven per cent of the total retail sales in China by next year.

According to the study conducted by Bain, apparel, electronics and groceries are the top grossing categories online.

The latest entrant to China’s online market is supermarket giant Walmart which bought a controlling stake in Chinese shopping website Yihaodian.com.

Online shopping site Taobao.com, which facilitates 80 per cent of consumer-to-consumer online retail and 20 per cent of business-to-consumer online retail, is still one of the leading online players despite business-to-consumer (B2C) players tapping into China’s online market.

“An explosive B2C growth is under way, fuelling the expansion of China’s entire e-commerce industry,” said Serge Hoffmann, a partner at Bain. “Many big traditional retail names are gearing up to seize the opportunity, including Walmart.”

GB