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A recent market study showed that China now has the largest number of online shoppers in the Asia Pacific region.

These figures were published by Mastercard in its 2012 study about consumers’ tendencies about online shopping. Mastercard created an index to measure the amount of online shoppers in each country, China got a score of 102, 4 points better than the previous year.

According to the report, the main reason for this rise, is the increased confidence Chinese consumers now place on online shopping. The figures show over the years that 35.3% of Chinese consumers did not feel secure about online shopping in 2010, but this figure dropped to 32.8% in 2011 and 21.4% in 2012.

The ease of online shopping is also an attractive element of online shopping. 9 out of 10 chinese said that it was easy to shop in China. This represent a 10% rise compared to 2011.

What are Chinese online shoppers’ favorite products?

First of all, among all the APAC countries, fashion items are the most popular as a quarter of shoppers have purchased such articles. 54% of Chinese online shoppers have some interest in fashion products. Music products are also very popular in the country as 36% of consumers are interested in this area.Although online supermarkets have not become popular yet, they are trending in the Chinese market and expected to gain popularity in the near future (Chinese example).

People are still concern by security

If we continue to analyze the figures of this survey, we notice that 30% of people surveyed did not make an online payment because of security and safety concerns. 1 in 3 shoppers fear online scams and are reluctant to purchase items without seeing them in person. As a result, many Chinese consumers like to purchase their products in person. When Mastercard asked Chinese consumers what enhancements or improvements could be made for online shopping, security concerns ranked as the most highly demanded improvement to the online shopping system.

Mobile shopping

The trend of mobile shopping is also increasing a lot in Asia. According to Mastercard, Indonesia ranked the highest in mobile shopping, followed by China, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.

The Chinese market has a lot of potential for growth in mobile shopping. In the beginning of 2013, there were  420 million mobile internet users in China and 146 million mobile shoppers. In addition, online shopping is expected to increase around 25% in the next few years. If you want to launch your e-commerce business in China be sure to read this article before starting. The senior VP of APMEA, Porush Singh from Mastercard stated that this report accurately reflects the changes of behavior of the shoppers. He stated that in the future, online purchases will gain popularity and that one of the main trends will be mobile-commerce.

Daxue Market Study

Sources:

• McKinsey
• USDA
• Fung Group
• China Daily