Since 2013, policy reforms in China have encouraged the online sale of foreign goods in the country. These include reducing the duty tax on cross-border ecommerce.
In 2015, Chinese consumers purchased USD 17.22 billion worth of overseas products through cross-border ecommerce, a 112% year-over-year increase. Although cross-border ecommerce growth slowed slightly in 2016, an annual growth rate of 86% and USD 31.99 billion in sales still makes it a strong category in e-retail.
The number of Chinese consumers who purchased imported products on Tmall Global, an online marketplace for imported goods, more than doubled in 2016, according to Tmall Global operator Alibaba. As of the end of August 2016, Chinese consumers had placed more than 10 million orders on the cross-border ecommerce shopping area of Amazon.cn.
In February 2017, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said online retail sales in China hit USD 752 billion in 2016, representing 26.2% growth from 2015 – more than double the growth rate of overall retail sales, which increased 10.4% year-over-year.
Online fresh food is expected to reach USD 15 billion sales in 2016. Online would account for about 7% of China’s total sales of fresh foods, and it’s growing about 82% annually, according to Chinese research firm iResearch.
A recent survey from consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group shows that fresh food is the most in-demand product category. 63% consumers in the survey says they intend to buy high-quality fresh food in the next several years.
The survey reveals that 24% of consumers are satisfied with fresh food bought online, compared with 17% who are satisfied when buying in stores. Price is not the only driver for e-retail in this category as the internet also offers convenience and greater product selection for Chinese consumers.
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