One quarter Chinese population expected to order items through cross-border ecommerce by 2020

This estimate was released by eMarketer, a research company, in June 2016, projecting that 291.8 million online shoppers will spend USD 160 billion on cross-border ecommerce by 2020, jingdaily.com reports. This means an increase from 128 million cross-border online shoppers in 2015. The report says this number is likely to surge to 181.2 million spending USD 85.8 billion by the end of 2016. The share of total online shoppers who buy cross-border goods is set to move from a projected 40% in 2016 to 50.7% by 2020.

Higher trust in the quality of foreign goods than Chinese brands – especially when it comes to luxury items and food products such as baby milk powder – prompted by Alibaba and JD.com to both launch global shopping channels in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Both are courting foreign luxury brands. Tmall Global includes Macy’s among its cross-border retailers, and its new Mei.com luxury channel will include a cross-border component.

Nonetheless, the projections are optimistic about Chinese consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for foreign brands. According to eMarketer forecasting analyst Shelleen Shum, the new tax policy “negatively affects some categories of goods,” but “the demand for foreign goods via the cross-border ecommerce channel is still expected to remain strong due to better prices compared to offline retailers, perceived quality and better variety.”