2015 CHINESE E-COMMERCE REPORT BY IRESEARCH

According to iReaserch, the leading market research firm focusing on the Chinese internet industry, online sales in China continued to grow in 2015 thanks to an expanding mobile user base. Online shopping gross merchandise value, or GMV, grew 37.2 percent according to the report, which also underscores that as the online shopping market matures, e-commerce players will continue to develop merchandise categories and optimize logistics and after-sales services. Mobile shopping GMV, instead, advanced a whopping 123.2 percent. According to iResearch, mobile devices are on the upswing as they are characterized by portability, fragmented usage and immediate interaction. These factors facilitate integration between online and offline purchasing and social activities. On-line-to-off-line sales, or O2O, sales are also on the rise and expected to double by 2017.