Chinese Online Retailers Ready to Take off – StarWatch Report Nov Edition Released

[This article is extracted from our StarWatch report (November Edition). To read the full article, please download the report English version and Chinese version for free. The English edition of this report will also cover other hot topics such as mobile internet industry in China, and startup profile including Sky-Mobi, D.cn etc.]

On October 26, the first Chinese online retailer, Mecox Lane, was listed in the U.S. Its share gained as much as 68% in its Nasdaq debut, as investors grabbed a piece of the online clothing and accessories shop.

Online retailing is red-hot in China. Total transaction volume of Chinese online retailers more than doubled to RMB 252.77 billion (US$38 billion) last year, according to Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International. The trend continued in the first half of this year, when total transactions surged 103% to RMB 213.31 billion from the same period in 2009. Nevertheless, the country’s online retail market is still at an early stage and has lots of potential. Where about 4% of consumer goods in the United States were sold online as of the end of last year, only 1.98% were sold via the Internet in China, a figure that could more than double to 5% by 2014, estimates Shanghai-based iResearch. The overall business-to-consumer (B2C) market will be worth RMB 1.27 trillion in 2013, or up over 380% from the 2009 level, the research says. After Mecox Lane, Dangdang, the largest online bookshop in China, will be the next to go – probably list in Nasdaq this month. IPO of Vancl, another leading online clothing and accessories shop, and 360Buy, the largest online electronic store, are also in the pipeline. They are expected to be listed next year in the U.S.

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