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Q: Is online shopping popular in China?
Consumers in America take online shopping for granted - for example, Amazon is a huge company. How is ecommerce/online shopping developing in China? Are there any barriers to purchasing from international websites from China?
I know taobao.com is popular. I've seen expats refer to it often, but it's in Chinese, so maybe the natives use it a lot too.
There are also several online grocers. There's probably more.
As far as using something like Amazon in China, I would think even if you could use it, it would be at your own risk. You may or may not get what you buy.
taobao.com and buy 360 is both good. We use them, if you look at the sellers ratings and take the best, you cant go wrong.
vestriopti:
Would you use those two sites to find SERVICES, not goods? Would you feel confident buying a language course on line - language course via Skype, from Europe?
I've never had a problem and i have bought from local web sites and from Australia and America, Books, jacket, shoes, video camera, RC helicopters etc etc.
I use Paypal (for overseas transactions) so if I don't recieve, I make a dispute and get refunded.
If the product is from overseas though I have had problems getting it cleared because I don't have an entry stamp in my passport. I haven't been outside of China since I renewed it.
Be careful with Taobao as they will tell you anything to get the sale and I can't use Paypal with them, and some of their goods are made in Vietnam.!
vestriopti:
Thank you for input. I am curious about services. Call us crazy, but we would like to help business people learn business English - we offer that service online. Will anyone buy it?
Online shopping in the USA is $42 billion. Online shopping in China in 2010 was 500billion RMB with 185 million shoppers. The expected value of online shopping in 2011 in China is estimated to reach 890 billion Yuan!!
If you can find a niche market in there you should have no worries.
I use TaoBao and have no problems and even with items that were broken or not working on delivery I was able to return and have replaced.
For your product I would be touting personally within businesses and with recommendations from happy customers.
Taobao is massively popular, at my work (around 30 staff) there is average of 2+ things delivered each day from a taobao seller...i personally buy many things from taobao too, its a lot better than any online shopping site ive used in the UK and you can almost always have instant chat with the seller before buying...
any problem i ever had with an item was fixed well within my satisfaction...
