On August 8th, 2019, the head of Department of Electronic Commerce and Informatization of the Ministry of Commerce introduced the development of China’s online retail market in the first half of 2019.

In the first half of 2019, China’s online retail market maintained a fast growth. The national online retail sales totaled 4.82 trillion yuan, with an increase of 17.8% year on year, and 2.5 percentage points higher than that of the first quarter. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods were 3.82 trillion yuan, up 21.6%. It accounted for 19.6% of the total retail sales of social consumer goods, up 1.4 % over the first quarter, contributing 44.8% to the growth of the total retail sales of social consumer goods, up 3.6% over the first quarter. Its effect in stimulating potential demand and expanding domestic consumption was increasing.

China’s online retail market presented the following features in the first half year:

First of all, quality improvement and upgrading was obvious in consumption. According to the monitoring of business big data, the percentage of online retail B2C model continued to increase. B2C retail sales accounted for 75.8% of the national online retail sales, up 4.1% year on year. The sales of cosmetics, smart home appliances, health care products and other goods for consumption upgrading grew by over 30% year on year. More than 100,000 brands participated in the first “Brand-Quality Online Shopping Festival”, with the sales amounting to 77 billion yuan, increasing by over 32% year on year. New products were released faster. More than 80% of the core brands of major e-commerce platforms released new products in June 18 campaign, with the sales amount exceeding 1 million.

Secondly, consumption hotspots varied in different regions. According to the monitoring of business big data, the online retail sales in the eastern, central, western and northeastern regions accounted for 83.2%, 9.6%, 5.9% and 1.3% of the national figure in the first half year respectively, up 17.8%, 35.4%, 13.9% and 20.6% year on year respectively. Different regions presented different consumption hotspots: the retail sales of fresh food, cosmetics and pet products grew fast in big cities, while those of clothing, automotive products and household appliances increased rapidly in small and medium-sized cities and rural areas.

Thirdly, rural e-commerce showed great potential for development. With the deepening of digital construction of rural areas, comprehensive demonstration of e-commerce in rural areas, and network poverty alleviation, the rural online sales continued to increase, and the poverty alleviation through e-commerce began to take effect. According to the monitoring of big business data, the national rural online retail volume totaled 777.13 billion yuan in the first half year, up 21.0% year on year. The growth rate was 3.2% higher than the national figure. The national online retail sales of agricultural products amounted to 187.36 billion yuan, up 25.3% year on year. The Ministry of Commerce guided the China E-commerce Alliance for Poverty Alleviation to carry out agricultural product brand promotion. A total of 464 agricultural brand enterprises in poor area received the certification program of “pollution-free agricultural product, green product, organic agricultural product and geographical indication of agricultural products”, 129 enterprises are still in the process. The online retail sales of poverty-stricken counties in China reached 65.98 billion yuan, up 18.0% year on year.

Fourthly, the cross-border e-commerce developed rapidly. According to the monitoring of big business data, the retail imports of major cross-border e-commerce platforms increased by over 20% in the first half of this year, in which the imports from Japan, the U.S. and South Korea accounted for 19.1%, 13.9% and 10.7% respectively, ranking the Top 3 countries. In terms of categories, the imports of cosmetics, cereal & oil foodstuffs and daily necessities accounted for 34.8%, 24.7% and 9.6% respectively, ranking the Top 3.

Fifthly, e-commerce had a deep integration into physical stores. In the first half year, the integration between online and offline stores developed towards consumer focus and high operational efficiency. Many e-commerce platforms strengthened opening-up and empowerment, paid attention to the layout of sluggish markets, integrated into the community ecology, and achieved good results. The social e-commerce mode was more diversified, with community group buying, joint purchase among friends, live broadcasting, forums, short videos and others means to compete with each other for development, which fully met the consumers’ differentiated needs and promoted the consumption potential to release continuously.