Tmall has been named China’s best website by design.

A survey conducted by digital marketing firm Web Presence revealed transparency is the single most important factor in Chinese website design.

An astonishing 83 per cent of respondents listed transparency in product and terms as the most important factor in a commercial website’s design. Other factors, such as engaging imagery, varied multimedia, and brand history placed far behind.

And according to 10,000 Chinese online shoppers surveyed Tmall has that transparency making it trustworthy.

Tmall’s rise from its launch in 2008, from among a host of e-commerce players, to gaining more than 50 per cent of China’s online B2C market share, is largely attributable to its transparency.

The Alibaba-owned e-commerce site was the first Chinese platform to introduce a rigorous rating and comment system. Buyer reviews are indelible, and are rigorously categorized according to quality of the product, delivery service, and customer service. These ratings are aggregated into an overall score that appears on every store’s page.

“Chinese online shoppers will frequently pay significantly more for a product from a store with a high rating, than for an identical product from a store with a lower one,” said Grace Chen, marketing specialist for Web Presence.

“More and more, it makes sense for a Western brand to establish on Tmall, which obviously is at the forefront of high-profit China website design and Chinese e-commerce,” says Jacob Cooke, CEO of Web Presence.