E-commerce has been
identified as the preferred shopping channel for Chinese consumers, according
to a recent report. Mobile e-commerce is driving the growth of online
shopping, as customers can easily access shopping platforms anywhere and at any
time. Further, it is seen that the Chinese consumers are becoming more
conscious about branding and quality.
Around 36 per cent of the surveyed adults choose to shop from pure online
players, with Tmall and Taobao, the preferred online destinations, said the
report based ProsperChina Quarterly Survey—the largest online survey of
consumers in China.Taobao is China’s largest online consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
platform. It has one of the lowest net promoter scores (NPS)—a measure of
customer experience and a proxy that helps predict business growth—with a value
of -32. Chinese consumers’ preference for branding and quality is one of the
reasons for the low score, as well as the fact that Taobao’s main customers
fall into the lower-income group. Taobao has positioned itself as a marketplace
for the mass market.
"Of the surveyed, 51.5 per cent cared about branding and 45.6 per cent
cared about the quality of the product, versus 40.9 per cent who considered
price as a factor in their purchase decision," the report said.Tmall is
the largest business-to-consumer (B2C) platform in China and attracts
high-value customers, the report stated. It is the preferred e-commerce site
among both the high-income group and people born in the 1980s. The e-commerce
group has positioned itself as a higher-end marketplace.
"With both Taobao and Tmall in its portfolio, Alibaba is considered an
e-commerce powerhouse. The two platforms are complementary—one captures the low-price
consumer (Taobao), while the other (Tmall) increasingly differentiates on
quality and branding and captures the high-price consumer. With the ongoing
upgrade of Chinese consumption, Tmall is better positioned for sustained
growth, but one cannot rule out Taobao with its low-value proposition,"
the report said.
Source: Ecns.cn, China Tuesday, 07 November 2017