China Poised to Dominate E-Commerce by 2018
![](https://cdn.nextgov.com/media/img/cd/2014/11/11/111114chinainternetNG/860x394.jpg?1627567684)
Duc Dao/Shutterstock.com
One of the factors that helps drive rising e-commerce sales is consumer confidence.
Chinese shoppers are celebrating the online shopping extravaganza Singles Day, and by 1:30pm local time, they had spent nearly $6 billion on Alibaba , the country’s biggest e-commerce site. Last year it took them the full day to cough up that much cash. It is a sign of just how quickly China’s e-commerce market is growing.
But Singles Day is just the beginning. Chinese e-commerce is about to get much, much bigger. By 2018 sales from e-commerce in China will exceed those in the rest of the world combined, reckons Morgan Stanley.
![](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/global-e-commerce-sales-china-usa-everyone-else-total_chartbuilder.png?w=640)
At the rate e-commerce is growing, it will account for one in every five renminbi spent in China by 2018.
![](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/e-commerce-share-of-consumption-in-china-online-consumption_chartbuilder.png?w=640)
One of the factors that helps drive rising e-commerce sales is consumer confidence. The more experience people have with online shopping, the more they spend.
![](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/average-spending-per-online-shopper-by-years-of-experience-average-spending-in-rmb_chartbuilder.png?w=640)
Another reason is that physical retail infrastructure in China is thin on the ground, especially when compared to more developed economies.
![](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/retail-space-per-capita-2013-space_chartbuilder.png?w=640)
This is particularly true outside of big urban centers, which helps explain why much of the growth will come from smaller towns. Nearly 60% of active mobile devices are in “tier 3″ or smaller cities, and a quarter of online purchases in the first half of this year were made on mobile.
![](https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/active-mobile-devices-by-city-size-share_chartbuilder.png?w=640)
( Image via Duc Dao / Shutterstock.com )
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