China’s predilection towards online shopping has been compared to an “addiction” in a new post on DHL’s “Logistics of Things” blog.
“The Chinese are becoming seriously addicted to e-commerce,”said DHL eCommerce CEO Charles Brewer, in a post titled, “Are China’s smaller cities hidden e-commerce gems?” Brewer contends that in many lower-tier cities, most people still haven’t started to shop online, meaning huge potential for e-commerce growth in the future.
Brewer stresses that the biggest opportunities for online shopping “don’t lie in the glistening, jewel-like first-tier cities of Beijing or Shanghai.” Instead, e-commerce growth is going to happen in smaller cities, “where the majority of China’s 1.3 billion people live.”
The article, posted on DHL’s website, is worth a read, as it also unpacks China’s lower-tier cities’ spending habits. It also looks at the ways in which China’s government, and businesses like DHL, have lowered barriers to trade in lower-tier cities by including policy reform and infrastructure improvements.