In the first half of 2016, the on-line retail industry had a fast development, and the rural e-business and the cross-border e-business maintained a good development trend. On September 7, it was learned from the latest 2016 (1^st Half Year) Report on Monitoring of Data of China’s On-line Retail Market released by 100EC.EN, a famous Chinese organization engaged in e-business research, that, in the first half of 2016, the turnover in China’s on-line retail market reached RMB2314.194 billion, up 43.4% year-on-year over the first half of 2015 (RMB1614 billion). It is predicted that, the turnover in the market throughout the whole year may reach RMB5221.8 billion. The cross-border e-business still maintains a fast growing tendency, and the turnover of the cross-border e-business for import reached RMB512.5 billion in the first half of the year.

 

In accordance with the report mentioned above, in the first half of 2016, in the B2C on-line retail market of China (including the open platform mode and self-operation mode, and excluding e-business of brands), Tmall ranked first, with a market share of 53.2%; JD.com ranked second, with a market share of 24.8%; Vipshop ranked third, with a market share of 3.8%. Mo Daiqing, director of the Department of On-line Retail and senior analyst of 100EC.EN, believes that the basically stable competition pattern without obvious change of market shares and the integrated development of on-line and off-line businesses indicate that on-line retail has entered into a stable development period.

 

Undoubtedly, a highlighted event in the first half of the year is the implementation of the new policies on tax reform for cross-border e-business, with a number of lists released. Although the execution of the new policies was postponed for one year finally, a clear signal was sent: the time for cross-border e-business operators to “arbitrage” for profits is fading away.

 

The report said that, in the first half of 2016, the turnover of cross-border e-business for import reached RMB512.5 billion, and it is expected to reach RMB1100 billion throughout the whole year. However, in 2015, the total turnover of China’s cross-border e-business was RMB5.4 trillion.

 

Mo believes that, although the new policies raised great response in the first half of the year, the cross-border e-business for import still continued a growth trend, and the competitive advantages of qualified enterprises engaged in cross-border e-business for import and retail were further highlighted. The competition among import e-business operators has been transformed from the “1.0 era” mode relying on discounts and promotion to one relying on quality, service and supply chain. To sum up, it is a competition of comprehensive strength.

 

Source: Translated from Invest Guangzhou, September 8, 2016