Electrical Equipment / Components & Telecoms

In 2022, the overall online retail market in China is steadily growing. According to customs data, the national online retail sales in 2022 reached 13.79 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4%. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods reached 11.96 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%, accounting for 27.2% of the total retail sales of consumer goods in society.

Against the backdrop of multiple pressures such as the impact of the epidemic and economic downturn on the entire consumer demand, online retail business has maintained sufficient growth resilience, especially during the most severe period of the epidemic, making positive contributions to meeting consumer demand and boosting the stable production and supply of the consumer industry chain. "said Chen Jia, a researcher at the International Monetary Research Institute of Renmin University of China.

Multiple highlights of online consumption

54737.9 yuan -- Xiao Xin showed her Alipay bill last year to the International Business Daily reporter. Among them, beauty salons, mother and baby parents and children, and clothes and costumes ranked top three. In the past two years, most of my daily necessities have been purchased online and delivered directly to my home by express delivery, especially during the epidemic prevention and control period, which has significantly reduced contact consumption, "said Xiao Xin.

There are many consumers with similar shopping habits to Xiao Xin, and in recent years, online shopping has almost covered all aspects of people's lives. With the gradual amplification and continuous development of advantages such as complete sales categories and convenient logistics in e-commerce, consumers' dependence on online shopping is becoming increasingly deepening.

When introducing the development of the online retail market in 2022, the head of the E-commerce Department of the Ministry of Commerce stated that the monitoring of key e-commerce platforms by business big data shows that the national online retail market in 2022 mainly presents four characteristics: firstly, sales of some product categories have achieved double-digit growth. Among the 18 types of monitored products, the sales growth rate of 8 types of products exceeded double digits. Secondly, the growth rate in the Northeast and Central regions is relatively fast. The online retail sales in the Northeast and Central regions increased by 13.2% and 8.7% year-on-year, respectively, 9.2 and 4.7 percentage points higher than the national growth rate. Thirdly, the growth trend of online retail of agricultural products is good. According to customs data, the national rural online retail sales reached 2.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%. The fourth is the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce. Customs data shows that in 2022, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports (including B2B) reached 2.11 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.8%.

In addition, the new formats and models of e-commerce also fully demonstrate vitality. According to the person in charge mentioned above, the key monitoring e-commerce platforms have accumulated over 120 million live streaming sessions, watched over 1.1 trillion people, had over 95 million live streaming products, and had nearly 1.1 million active anchors.

According to customs data, in 2022, new anchors continued to climb to the top of the ranks: in June, Dong Yuhui was "sealed in the first battle", and Dongfang Selection quickly "emerged"; At the end of the year, Zhang Lan and Chen Lan became popular and began to compete for the position of "Tiktok First Sister"

According to customs data, it is estimated that the GMV of live streaming e-commerce across the entire network in 2022 will be around 3.5 trillion yuan, accounting for 23% of the total retail sales of e-commerce.

At the same time, real-time retail, as a new form and model of e-commerce, is gradually releasing its charm: it continues to penetrate industries and categories, cover more application scenarios, and accelerate the arrival of everything at home. From fruits, catering, daily necessities, to pharmaceuticals and even clothing, "placing an order online and delivering it to home in 30 minutes" has gradually become the shopping norm for consumers.

Seize the trend and advance further

From a trend perspective, although the sales growth rate of online retail has been decreasing year by year compared to previous years, its growth rate is still higher than the growth rate of the total retail sales of consumer goods in society. It is expected that the proportion of physical goods online retail will gradually increase in the future, "said Lai Yang, a member of the Expert Committee of the China Federation of Commerce and the Chief Expert of the Beijing International Business Center Research Base.

Looking ahead, industry experts believe that in order to maintain high-quality development in China's online retail industry, we still need to seize opportunities and meet challenges.

Chen Jia stated that firstly, the pattern of the online retail industry needs to be further optimized, and the retail model needs to be further innovated. Under the continuous and precise regulation of policies on the healthy development of the platform economy, the online retail industry is expected to rely on technological innovation, take advantage of the rebound in consumer demand, optimize the industry structure, and consolidate the foundation of high-quality development. Secondly, the online retail industry must attach great importance to technological progress and continuously improve its core competitiveness. Based on the trend of the global online retail industry, online retail enterprises are increasing their layout in new generation interactive application scenarios such as artificial intelligence, VR, AR, and metaverse to seize market share in online consumption.

In addition, "in the future, the online retail industry should also pay attention to conform to the general trend of economic development and objective laws. With the deepening of the new technological revolution in the consumer industry chain, the online retail industry is increasingly dependent on the stickiness of customers. All major platforms and brands need to constantly improve the online service level, sink the market to the county and rural areas, continue to launch localized products, and enhance the stickiness of customers." Chen Jia said.