Gross merchandise volume (GMV) of China’s online shopping market rose 45.3 per cent year-on-year to 437.13 billion yuan ($71.4 billion) in the second quarter.

National Bureau of Statistics’ data showed that total retail sales of social consumer goods was 6.03 trillion yuan during the period, up 8.7 per cent on the first quarter.

GMV of online shopping took 7.3 per cent share of total retail sales of consumer goods, says iResearch.

The business to consumer (B2C) market hit 157.6 billion yuan, 77.4 per cent higher than a year ago and accounted for 36.1 per cent of the total online shopping market.

Tmall with a share of 50.8 per cent, kept its leading position in B2C market.

Meanwhile, JD led the independent B2C market with a share of 43.9 per cent. Suning occupied 12.9 per cent while the share of Amazon China, 51buy.com and Vishop were over five per cent.

China online shopping market experienced price wars in the second quarter and iResearch says that e-commerce companies declared the price wars to stimulate consumption, attract online shoppers’ participation and raise online shopping GMV.

All the major e-commerce companies participated in a price war which has become a kind of marketing method, rather than just way to compete for market share, says iResearch.

However, in the long term, according to iResearch, e-commerce companies will not just relay on low price to attract consumers; they’ll strengthen the management of the supply chain and serve customers better.