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Global Online Purchasing Fever

China Today by LUO LAN, February 8, 2017 Adjust font size:

Consumers worldwide have embraced the latest cyber-purchasing passion – overseas online shopping. From daily necessities like meals, toothpaste, and slippers, to furniture, electrical appliances, garments, and luxury items, cyber shoppers now have a global scale of choice. China has been foremost in the furor of this latest shopping mode, not only as its most popular source, but also for its abundance of avid overseas online shoppers.

Shopping on Chinese Websites

Internet retailer Alibaba cleaned up once more during last year’s November 11 online shopping bonanza, nicknamed the Double 11 Festival, partly thanks to its overseas patrons. The commodities available on Chinese websites indeed attract many shoppers from abroad.

The e-business launch of an online shopping carnival. 


Since British multinational grocer and general merchandise retailer Tesco introduced the Laoganma brand of chili sauce, highly recommended by the New York Times, it has been a favorite both with Chinese overseas students and their local peers.

American housewife Debbie reportedly spends one third of her spare time surfing Chinese websites for bargains and smart outfits that are much admired by her neighbors.

In Russia, around 15 million citizens surf Chinese shopping websites. A survey of online consumption trends showed that China’s Taobao is the most popular shopping website among netizens in Japan – keen purchasers of the Chinese Dabao cosmetic brand, whose products sell online for just one tenth of the price at Japanese retailers – the U.S., Russia, and the EU.

In addition to their high product quality, the popularity of Chinese products is attributable also to network advances. Results of a survey among foreign consumers showed that, in 2012 only three percent of respondents could name even one Chinese brand, but by 2015 this figure had risen to 23 percent.

Shopping on Chinese websites is now commonplace abroad. The PayPal and Ipsos Third Annual Global Report showed that China is the most popular overseas online shopping country.

The report examined the consumption habits of more than 280 million online shoppers in 32 countries worldwide. It found that around 21 percent buy from Chinese websites, 17 percent from those in the U.S., and 13 percent from U.K. websites. Shoppers surveyed sought high quality, low-priced goods. Around 76 percent patronized overseas online shopping due to favorable prices, and 65 percent because they could thus obtain goods unavailable in their home countries. Another 46 percent appreciated the free deliveries, and 44 percent the more secure payment mode.

Many shoppers make purchases on smartphones, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The report showed that about 37 percent of overseas shopping in the region is carried out on mobile devices, especially smart phones, and that around 68 percent of consumers there have shopped by phone over the past 12 months. Mobile shopping in China has also significantly increased in recent years. In 2016 spending via smart phones accounted for 35 percent of the total volume of overseas online shopping. The figure in 2015 was 27 percent.

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