{"id":14878,"date":"2024-11-19T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=14878"},"modified":"2025-04-23T08:55:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T08:55:45","slug":"chinas-e-commerce-market-the-road-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/chinas-e-commerce-market-the-road-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"How did China’s e-commerce model become the best in the world?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s safe to say that many are amazed (and rather jealous) of the apparent success of China\u2019s e-commerce market and the internet businesses that thrive within it. But how did they do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New book From<\/em> Click to Boom<\/em> (Princeton University Press, 2024) asks that very question \u2013 how did the world\u2019s largest e-commerce market highlight a digital path to development? Paul French caught up with its author, Lizhi Liu, an assistant professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington DC, to discuss potential answers.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We\u2019re all amazed at the size and rapid growth of China\u2019s e-commerce market \u2013 can you tell us just how big and all-encompassing this market truly is?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the world\u2019s largest e-commerce market, with over 800 million users, a 40% share of global transactions, and retail e-commerce sales surpassing US$2 trillion. To put this into perspective, during China\u2019s 2020 Singles\u2019 Day shopping event (akin to Cyber Monday), an astonishing four billion parcels were generated \u2013 enough to circle the Earth at the equator roughly thirty times if placed end to end. (It is noted that caution is needed when interpreting these numbers, as some sellers inflate their sales figures to boost search rankings through fraudulent practices \u2013 a common issue globally. Despite these distortions, the scale and popularity of China\u2019s e-commerce market remain unmatched.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The market also offers far greater product variety compared to its Western counterparts. Chinese consumers often refer to it as an \u2018omnipotent market,\u2019 where \u2018there\u2019s nothing you can\u2019t find, only what you haven\u2019t imagined yet.\u2019 Beyond everyday items like clothing and household necessities, shoppers can even purchase bad debt and court-seized assets. Some of the more unusual offerings mentioned in the book include a \u2018Dog Translator\u2019 (which claims to interpret dog sounds into human language) and a \u2018Noisy-Neighbour Revenge Machine\u2019 (a vibration motor designed to annoy an upstairs neighbour). Notably, there\u2019s also a ceramic figurine of Donald Trump as Buddha, inscribed with the slogan \u2018Make your company great again\u2019 \u2014 a playful gift that may appeal to both Trump supporters and critics alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n