

Valuable TouchpointĪs mentioned above, an average Internet user in China spends nearly half of their time online browsing social media.

In other words, social media channels like WeChat are emerging as a solution to mitigate the bottleneck issue of China's e-Commerce market. Their WeChat Mini Programs (MPs), a sub-application inside China's top social media/messaging platform WeChat.

In light of the rising consumer acquisition costs, companies are diversifying their approach to capture private traffic as well. In fact, those 3 top B2C retail platforms have already taken up nearly 80% of the total market. If you stay up-to-date with the eCommerce landscape in China, you would know that it is very well-developed and has become overly saturated now.īrands face intense competition in the public sector in public marketplaces like Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. So, what exactly has been pumping social commerce growth in China? Why is Social eCommerce so Successful in China? Established & Saturated eCommerce Market In the near future, eMarketer also forecasts that China will continue to dominate in both sales volume and growth speed. Its penetration rate went from 2.7% in 2017 to 4.3% in 2021. On the other hand, the US's social commerce market underwent a much more modest development. And, that figure has doubled to reach over 13% in just 4 years! In particular, China's sales via social media channels contributed 6% to the total retail eCommerce revenue in 2017. According to eMarketer, China's social commerce penetration rate experiences a much more rapid growth than the US's. How come? Chinese people's openness to online shopping and social shopping, more specifically, can be attributed to how developed the market is. This rate is much higher than the global average of only 42%. Social media are also excellent platforms for discovering new products, doing research on them, finding deals, and even making purchases! In fact, a survey in 2020 revealed that over 70% of Chinese consumers felt inclined to shop via social media channels. But it is not just for communication and keeping up with the news. In addition, an average Chinese internet user spends around 5 hours and 15 minutes per day online, nearly half of which is for browsing social media. This has cemented China as the country with the largest social media population! And this figure is expected to reach nearly 1.3 billion by 2026. But, to a much more immersive extent.Īccording to Statista, nearly 1 billion social media users were recorded in 2021. Like most other countries, social media is a big part of people's daily lives here as well. In 2021, China social commerce market size has expanded to 2.5 trillion yuan (over $374 billion), with nearly 800 million participants.
