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Check out Commerce Crossing Borders, our new blog!

Like lots of folks, we love international travel ... and international trade.

So please visit us at our newest blog, which we're calling Commerce Crossing Borders.

We'll be following the latest topics in and around cross-border and international e-commerce.

We've invited the international e-commerce community to join us as we create and curate the finest collection of insights, research, analysis and other stuff that catches our eye or stimulates our curiosity.

Join on our latest quest to showcase how commerce crossing borders will drive the next era of e-commerce growth.

Cheers

Kent Allen
Principal of The Research Trust

Being There: Yoox Gets Serious About Chinese e-Commerce

First Emporio Armani. Now Marni. And more high-end luxury sites are on the way from Bologna, Italy-based Yoox.

On March 1st Yoox SpA plans to launch the Marni fashion brand, its second e- commerce site in China. The sites will tap the growing online demand for luxury goods, which is projected to be China’s fastest-growing consumer category over the next five years. According to brokerage CLSA, shoppers from mainland China may account for 44 percent of global luxury sales by 2020.

That's a lot of high-end e-commerce from a single country.

Yoox's Serious Gap Analysis: "You've got to be there"
“Delivering to China is different from having operations in China,” says Yoox Chief Executive Officer Federico Marchetti. “The only way to do China seriously is from China.” Most Chinese e-commerce retailers focus on the low end of the apparel and accessories market, according to Marchetti. “We have gone to fill the gap for luxury," he said.

Marni and Armani will be the only European luxury goods brands with an e-commerce site operating from China, Marchetti said. About 450 million Chinese are connected to the Internet, making the country the world’s most-populated online market, and the number is growing by about 100 million annually, he said.

Planning to Corner the Market?
Yoox expects China to become one of the company’s top three markets by 2015. To tap the opportunity, Yoox will introduce two or three more e-commerce sites in China in 2011, including thecorner.com, its online multi-brand retail business. It will also accelerate luxury brand openings over the next few years, according an interview reported by Bloomberg.

Yoox, based in Bologna, Italy, opened an office and logistics center in Shanghai last year. The company operates online retailing and distribution for fashion and luxury goods brands including Valentino and Dolce & Gabbana.

China is the company's next frontier now that Yoox has successfully entered the U.S., which will likely become Yoox’s biggest market in 2011. Sales in the U.S. exceeded Italy for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2010, Marchetti said.

What's the take-away here?
It's clear that more European brands are targeting the U.S. and China as key global international e-commerce markets.

It's also becoming clear to online retailers that serious strategic moves designed to tap the Chinese market will require investing in your own logistics center (although a single DC may quickly prove to not be enough to support the exploding Chinese e-commerce market). The existing logistics infrastructure in China is simply not capable of handling the boom in e-commerce.

Still, for many brands, entering China via cross-border e-commerce will continue to be the best option. However, the key to success will be tapping into the new infrastructure investments being made by companies like Yoox.

If Yoox boosts its investments in logistics, the company will likely find out that quite a few brands (and not just luxury brands) will soon be knocking on its door.

Yoox, both an e-commerce aggregator of sought-after high-end brands and an e-commerce platform, is making a wise investment in the future of e-commerce.

Yoox's move into Chinese will be one to watch.

Until then,

Cheers

Intn'l e-Commerce Data Point: Aussie e-Commerce Growing at 40%

eBay's recent Australian e-commerce data shows that domestic sellers grew ten times faster than Australia's overall retail trade last year.

In 2010, the top 2000 eBay sellers had annual revenues of between $120,000 to as much as $12.6 million, eBay said, with total revenues up 38 per cent according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

A Time for Inflection?
“We are at an inflection point in Australian retail where millions of Australians are increasingly choosing to shop online instead of going into a store,” said eBay Australia & New Zealand managing director Deborah Sharkey.

As we've begun to document in recent weeks, the Australian retail industry seems to be in a Perfect Storm of sorts.

Among the forces battering the industry:

• Post-GFC, macro-economic conditions for many traditional retailers have deteriorated.


• Australians are increasingly comfortable shopping online and this is driving the growth of the domestic e-commerce sector.


• Meanwhile, the soaring Australian dollar encourages cross-border e-commerce as consumers shop for goods on websites that ship down under.


• Instead of evolving their retail formats to be more customer-centric, traditional Aussie retailers are turning to the government (or anyone that will listen) for help (err, make that protection).

Traffic flows Down Under: Deal sites swamp the brick and mortars

Hitwise reports than eBay was the single biggest web destination for shoppers in Australia through the Christmas season.

The most visited local online-only retailer was Catchoftheday.com with 6.8 million visitors in the nine weeks ending January 1.

DealsDirect, took in 6.5 million visitors in the same time, was followed by group buying site Cudo, which had 6.4 million visitors.

“It's interesting - but unsurprising - that the top ranked pure-play (online only) retailers - aside from Amazon and Apple- focus on cheap deals,” said Grant Arnott, chairman of the Online Retailer Conference, commenting on the Experian numbers.

Australian brick and mortar sites were led by:

• JB Hi-Fi's, with 9.5 million visits (although Apple, which sells thru some retail stores actually led with 10.8 million).


• Big W, which launched its online store last year, followed with 5.7 million visitors in that period.


• Kmart had 5 million visits from Australian web users.


• Harvey Norman, who hasn't made many friends with its push to tax online imports[link] , had 4.6 million visitors


• Woolworths-owned Dick Smith attracted 4.1 million visitors

Forrester Research expects Australian online retail spending to rise from $19.3 billion in 2010 to $33.3 billion in 2015, with the proportion of Internet users shopping online rising by 1 per cent a year until 2015.

Don't be surprised if the Perfect Storm makes Forrester's data seem conservative.

Until then

Cheers

Chinese e-Commerce Roadblock? Logistics Can't Keep Up with the Boom.

Some good insights and stats on China' e-commerce growth in this piece about how logistics have become the bottleneck in China's prosperous e-commerce industry in the last year.

Chinese Logistics Cannot Keep Up with Online Shopping
Zeng Ming, chief strategy officer at Alibaba Group, pretty much sums the essence of the article "E-commerce in China is growing too fast and exceeds the current logistics capacity."

Chinese e-Commerce Growth Data
Some take-aways for companies targeting China's fast-growing e-commerce market:

• The number of online shoppers increased by almost 50 percent to 160 million in 2010, the China Internet Network Information Center said last month.
• The Chinese online-shopping market grew by more than 370 percent year-on-year in terms of sales, reaching 520 billion yuan (79 billion U.S. dollars) last year, according to research company Analysys International.
• Amid the growth in online shopping, 2.4 billion packages were delivered in 2010, an increase of 30 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the Chinese Logistics Association
• Logistics sales revenue in 2010 reached 60 billion yuan, a 20 percent year-on-year increase
• Delivery logjams are constraining merchants' ability to run promotions

Investment Opportunity of the Decade?
Some different ways to look at the growth of e-commerce in China, but the 20% growth in logistics sales is obviously lagging all these numbers.

So what is being done about the lack of capacity to deliver the goods?

• Joyo Amazon, the Chinese subsidiary of US-based online retailer Amazon.com Inc, has started to build their own logistics network
• Last month, Alibaba announced that it plans to invest 20 to 30 billion yuan to build a network of warehouses nationwide to improve logistics for its online trading business.
• Chinese VC investment company Legend Capital Ltd recently confirmed that it will invest in China's third-largest courier company Yunda Ltd.

Same-Day Delivery No Matter Where You Live? Its Virtual Urbanization ...
How will this investment change the way that the Chinese shop online?

"Hopefully, within 10 years, anyone placing an order online from anywhere in China will receive their goods within eight hours, allowing for the virtual urbanization of every village in the nation," said Jack Ma, chairman and chief executive officer of Alibaba Group.

Until then,

Cheers

Cross-Border Currents: Not Getting It Down Under

Booming cross-border online sales are stirring up more trouble down under. Perhaps not surprisingly, the retail powers that be in Australia are rattling their sabers and threatening protectionist measures.

The tipping point
Just after Christmas '10, Harvey Norman founder and chairman Gerry Harvey, retail mogul Solly Lew, and fellow retailers launched a campaign against the leakage of sales, especially GST-free purchases, to the web.

Chief among their complaints, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, was that the GST-free threshold of $1000 for internet retail sites put Australian retail operations at a significant price disadvantage.

Australian online shoppers say "Not so fast, mates ..."
When the campaign, also supported by Myer and David Jones, backfired, the coalition of retailers quickly retreated from their advertising. But they did win a commitment for a Productivity Commission inquiry and since then the perceived threat of online sales from e-commerce brands based outside of Australia has exploded on the national retail agenda.

The Australian National Retailers Association welcomed the inquiry's start as it said recovery of the sector looked like a distant hope. ''Australian shoppers remain cautious post-GFC (aka the Global Financial Crisis) and with such a challenging retail environment, a wide-ranging review of opportunities for growth and the barriers to prosperity is overdue,'' the association said.

Perhaps the inquisition will help the retail industry realize that they are falling behind because they are holding onto the past and ignoring what their customers are telling them they want — and not due to the rise in value-priced imports from e-commerce businesses based outside Australia.

But local Aussie retail consultants believe that in many cases brick and mortar retailers will continue to struggle to keep up with rapidly evolving consumers. Many remain wedded to old school tactics that are not overly customer-centric. More on that here.

So instead of moving quickly to get with the times (and their customers), now there will be time-consuming reports and studies and contradictions and all the stuff that one hears when old school industry types start whining and moaning.

Of course that also means more time for U.S. e-commerce brands to get in down under and give the Australian customers the products, selection and price points that they are looking for.

Don't Build that Wall
Will we see countries move to erect barriers (e.g. special taxes on imports from cross-border e-commerce companies) designed to protect their domestic retailers? Or will consumers revolt?

The Fair Imports Alliance — a coalition of Australian retailer and wholesaler groups "providing a united voice on issues around the low value GST threshold of imported goods into Australia" — said the retail and manufacturing sectors had become increasingly concerned about the lack of consultation from the Customs and Border Protection Service since the announcement of a crackdown on the misuse of importation regulations.

The body has been calling for a full Government review of the current regulatory environment around low value imported goods. The Fair Imports Alliance claims that they are completely committed to "evidence-driven policy" which should examine a whole range of issues including (but not limited to):

• The GST threshold’s set amount and the reason behind that policy;
• The regulation and enforcement of the current and any altered threshold;
• The changing retail trend and growth of online sales;
• The effect of offshore purchasing on the Australian retail market place;
• The shrinking ‘bricks and mortar’ retail market and the corresponding effects on employment, regional communities and the investment retailers put back into the community;
• The use of the threshold as a mechanism for illegitimate business to operate and avoid taxation and regulation;
• Consumer protection; and
• Illicit trade, counterfeit and brand protection.

In case "they" haven't been paying attention, there is plenty of evidence that e-commerce and multichannel (aka "omnichannel") is the way to go these days. That is especially true now that the GFC is shaking up retail and separating the men from the boys.

And have they somehow missed the fact that international shoppers around the world are voting hands down for cross-border e-commerce with their wallets?

Protecting the consumer ... From what? The Evolution of Retail?
Australian shoppers want to support their local retailers and consumer brands.

In fact, Australians are the most brand loyal consumers in the entire world according to Forrester's Technographics survey which covers Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. Sixty-seven per cent of Australians Agreed or Strongly Agreed to the statement "when I find a brand I like, I stick to it."

Australians are also known for their inclination to support local businesses. But given the dire financial times, one should expect Australian consumers to continue to question whether their domestic retail industry wants to support them.

Unfortunately it appears to many that the move to erect barriers is a move to protect the interests of old-school retailers, not the interests of the Australian consumer.

They do not appear to be listening to the Australian shopper.

Until they start listening and re-acting they will not evolve. Domestic Australian retail will continue to lose share to brands that are evolving alongside today's global consumer.

And as that happens, the Forrester data suggests that Australians will stick with a new generation of brands that understand today's digital consumer. Old-line Australian retail may well lose a whole generation of shoppers.

Until then,

Cheers

Magento: The X-Factor in eBay's Secret Plan for International e-Commerce Domination?

Magento has built a strong following among SMB online merchants and shows no signs of slowing down, especially with the just-announced launch of Go. The launch of Magento's official SaaS-based commerce platform for small businesses was well-received by the 750 (was it 1000?) attendees at the Imagine eCommerce Conference.

There are almost 90K companies up on Magento now, with between 900 to 1000 on Magento enterprise. These guys are on a roll.

Perhaps less well-received (at least by some) was the post-show announcement yesterday that last March eBay had purchased a 49% stake in Magento.

According to President Roy Rubin, "one of the things that really sealed the deal for us was a shared vision with eBay for community, collaboration, partnership, and transparency."

So, what's the cross-border e-commerce angle?
In a recent series of cross-border e-commerce studies, we have found that small and medium sized e-commerce firms are generating a higher percentage of sales from international customers than are bigger merchants. In many cases, twice the percentage and, in a growing number of cases, three or four times as much.

eBay still gets a lot of disrespect from U.S. sellers (and other market spotters) when it comes to the marketplace. However, the company is making a lot of seemingly sound decisions when it comes to mobile and international e-commerce.

eBay's just-announced investment in Magento is a good one simply for purposes of future returns. Yet one can argue that eBay's investment in Magento is another smart investment in international e-commerce, albeit longer-term. Here's how.

Given Magento's growing appeal within the SMB marketplace, it is quite plausible that the SMB e-commerce community will increasingly adopt Magento as a preferred platform — for both existing and emerging e-commerce ventures.

As innovative SMB firms pursue a growing number of opportunities outside the U.S., we expect to see Magento become even more well-known as a global e-commerce brand.

To recap:

1. SMBs are leading U.S. e-commerce into international markets.
2. Magento is becoming the Go-to commerce platform for a growing number of these SMBs.
3. Magento is positioned to become a force in cross-border e-commerce. If not this year, soon.

Oh, and don't forget that many e-commerce ventures that look like SMB sites may very well be e-commerce (and m-commerce) projects launched by bigger brands to test the waters.

eBay on Magento
As far as the Magento investment, eBay Inc. chief technology officer Mark Carges said the investment helps eBay position itself as "a resource for e-retailers, whether they conduct business on eBay.com or elsewhere."

eBay's PayPal is one of multiple forms of pre-integrated payment options that e-retailers can choose to accept within the Magento framework. Rubin says that eBay’s stake in the company will not change that situation.

It is notable that none of Magento’s e-commerce platforms, including the Go platform, currently integrates with eBay’s marketplace.

Given all the "super cool stuff" that developers can do with Magento's open-source e-commerce software, selling on eBay from a Magento site can be done. So too can selling on other marketplaces, both those that focus primarily on the U.S. market as well as those in other international markets.

Ok, so what's eBay's cross-border e-commerce angle here?
Does eBay see Magento as a very attractive on-ramp for U.S. SMBs to sell through international marketplaces?

These marketplaces are on fire in emerging e-commerce hotspots all around the world. In fact, our cross-border and international e-commerce research continues to point towards these thriving marketplaces as a key first point of entry for U.S. online brands looking to get marketing and demand generation traction in markets outside the U.S.

We're also see eBay investing in these marketplaces. We think it will be really interesting to watch whether Magento becomes a preferred platform for U.S. SMB e-commerce brands to sell cross-border — both direct and through marketplaces.

It will also be interesting to see if, when and how eBay's growing portfolio of global e-commerce properties come into play. It appears that eBay's vision may be peering beyond the eBay marketplace, at least the eBay that those of us in the U.S. have known over the past decade plus.

SIDEBAR:

Cairo. Tehran. Seattle?
If eBay is winning with its Magento investment, who is losing? Some thought Yahoo would have been smart to invest in Magento as a way to solidify its hold on the SMB e-commerce space, a hold that may or may not be slipping depending on who you talk to.

Amazon also seems to be losing but certainly not to eBay, at least not from a marketplace perspective.

What Amazon is losing is respect, at least from its marketplace sellers as it tightens its grip on commerce and customer data that flows through its marketplace.

Our fly on the wall at the Magento conference last week said one of the highlights of the end-user gathering was the near-standing ovation for one merchant who stood and ranted about Amazon's recent and less-than-friendly marketplace activities.

There has been a growing number of concerns aired by Amazon sellers lately that the customer, product and pricing data they supply Amazon may be used by Amazon to gain a competitive advantage over the very same "partners" that in 2010 generated $10 billion in gross sales for Amazon. While these sellers are not the hand that feeds Amazon, they are feeling the bite.

Will more sellers revolt as the Amazon marketplace tightens its iron fist and puts the squeeze on?

Has the Amazon marketplace era reached its zenith?

Will the rise of social marketplaces led by celebrity curators usher in a new world marketplace order?

Will the era of social discovery forever change the marketplaces as we know them?

What do you think? Let us know ...

Until next time ....

Cheers

Lemons and Lemonade: Cross-Channel Grumbling Down Under

Interesting piece by Michael Baker about how the early successes of lululemon in Australia are highlighting how many major retailers down under are "running scared from the internet."

Baker speaks to some fundamental negatives that characterize many retail philosophies in Australia — primarily "overpaid and pouty retail employees" (Australian retail staff earn almost twice the hourly rate of Americans) and pricey goods and services that encourage shoppers to shop online.

What is lulu doing right? According to Baker ...

1. The Right Product: Differentiated clothing product lines delivering high-tech fabrics, aesthetic appeal and multi-functionality.


2. The Right People: Careful screening of sales staff and commitment to training to ensure they properly represent the values of the company and provide a knowledgable and high-energy store environment.


3. The Right Presentation: Meticulous attention to in-store presentation of merchandise.


4. The Right Balance: Commitment to pricing and brand integrity.


5. The Right Idea: Having a clear philosophy and getting the word out via active involvement in the community.

The Old School Needs New Blood
Australian retailers are spooked by the accelerated shift to online shopping, especially as some leaders in the online space relish in their online successes to date and project huge growth for 2011.

Baker offers a great reminder about the importance of cross-channel strategies to any retail brand that is serious about international expansion in today's digital world of retail.

Decidedly old school ways of running retail stores are opening the door for global brands that have invested their future in cross-channel — primarily by building connected shopping experiences that bridge the best that online and offline retail points of trade have to offer.

Aussie retailers should be taking advantage of the lessons learned from the still-maturing U.S. cross-channel practices. But based on a recent stream of commentary from Australia, many store retailers seem to be digging in and resisting.

Instead of making excuses, they should realize that they have more to lose and a shorter window to work with than some of the U.S. retailers that have just recently started to get the importance of cross-channel retail.

Pain is likely ahead for the headstrong, or as Baker puts it, "for Australia's retail chains to get the message, a change of culture, and probably a change of personnel at the very top, is needed."

A healthy retail sector is all about creative destruction. Instead of resisting change they should take advantage of their consumers' growing embrace of e-commerce.

Aussies like to support their fellow countrymen and if the price/value ratio is right, they may well be ready to embrace the right balance of digital and in-store experiences by supporting AU-based retail.

But given our lessons learned in the U.S., they won't wait too long.

Until next time,

Cheers

In China, e-Commerce Takes a Village

Read a fascinating article about how the village of Qingyan Liu Village is becoming a leading e-commerce hub in China. Many residents of this village, once farmers working in the fields near Yiwu City in east China's Zhejiang Province, now work in e-commerce.

e-Commerce Rising
Is there a lesson here for small U.S. towns in the Rust Belt and folks that used to work down South in the textile industry - once-thriving places where the jobs have all disappeared in recent decades?

Perhaps, but the bigger lesson is that innovators and entrepreneurs are riding the global wave of e-commerce. U.S. brands need to realize that their future competitors — and/or partners — may well be small villagers like those working the e-commerce night shift in Qingyan Liu.

Couple of quick takeaways from the article:

• These entrepreneurs aren't working in shiny new offices in Shanghai. They take orders over the Internet by day. By night, they pick, pack and ship out of garages and basements across the village.


• This is happening all across China (and no doubt beginning to happen in India, Vietnam, etc.).


• It is the Taobao marketplace, China's biggest online retailer, that is facilitating the buying and selling of these growing volumes of product by Chinese traders.


• Known as China's No. 1 E-commerce Village, Qingyanliu has produced 10 percent of Taobao's "Golden Crown" stores -- that is, the stores which have made over 500,000 transaction records. In 2009, Qingyanliu villagers pocketed 800 million yuan (121 million U.S. dollars) from their online sales.


• Statistics released by China's State Council Information Office show the number of Chinese Internet users had risen to 450 million by the end of last year - more than a third of the country's total population. Moreover, some 140 million of the nation's netizens have shopped online.


• Qingyanliu is not the hotbed of e-commerce entrepreneurship nor is e-commerce just getting going. Qinghe County, Hebei Province, is China's largest cashmere production base. Many of its villagers began running online stores in late 2007.


• Barriers to serving the Chinese market via e-commerce do exist. They include relatively slow Internet speeds and logistics systems.

The e-Commerce Village People Mean Business
Perhaps it remains to be seen if it's more fun to stay at the desk doing e-commerce than to work in the fields farming.

But the village people of Qingyanliu are a great example of how quickly e-commerce is spreading from the urban centers of international markets to the countryside (and "the suburbs").

The Qingyanlius are a great reminder that consumers in the urban hubs of emerging markets are not just buying online, but they are getting into the business of e-commerce.

Good for them. Not so good for U.S. brands that still have cross-border e-commerce and international expansion way out on their five year plan.

Until next time,

Cheers

Cross-Border Cuts Both Ways: PayPal Opening the World to Chinese Online Merchants

We're having more and more conversations these days about international firms eyeing cross-border opportunities into the U.S.

In late December, PayPal announced plans to work with the Chinese government to facilitate outbound e-commerce. The e-commerce hub will be in Chongqing, a city of more than 5 million in southwestern China.

According to Chris Yao, vice president of PayPal Greater China, the partnership includes jointly setting up a foreign exchange settlement solution and five international ecommerce centers including a verification center, investment promotion center, national telesales center, merchant training center and regional business development center.

Yao also said that PayPal will conduct a pilot in the first half of 2011 to explore ways to make it quicker and easier for Chinese businesses to both accept global currencies and convert their international payments to RMB for their local use.

Chinese e-Xports: Welcome to the e-Commerce Machine

To date PayPal has provided over 90 million active buyers in 190 markets with direct access to Chinese merchants and consumers. PayPal's latest focus is on providing fast, secure overseas payments and mission-critical transactional support for the Chinese online entrepreneurs targeting export opportunities around the globe.

The PayPal partnership will also educate Chinese merchants on how to use ecommerce for cross-border trade, with the first component being the pilot program centered on currency and payment conversion.

"We expect that a faster, simpler foreign exchange conversion process will be a big boost to millions of small businesses and entrepreneurs in China who want to grow by selling their products to the world," explained Yao. "[Many] are unsure about how to bring payments from global buyers back into China in a timely, efficient manner."

The Invisible Hand of International e-Commerce at Work
PayPal's commitment to provide innovative solutions that help Chinese merchants reach global customers is a great example of a leading U.S. e-commerce brand doing "big things" to reduce the friction of international trade.

As Lao points out, PayPal's partnership in China is a great example of how PayPal can work closely with other governments across the world to create more economic opportunities for local businesses.

It is also a great example of how e-commerce can help entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes all around world usher forth a new era of global commerce.

We're starting to see a fundamental shift in the global supply and demand curves; a shift that should help balance out some of the perceived inequities that have to date been viewed negatively by many threatened by the globalization of the world economy.

It reminds me of a story shared with me by a small U.S. online merchant that sells sunglasses and goggles all around the world.

Optical manufacturers in the Guangdong Province in China produce a staggering percentage of the world's glasses and eyewear. This merchant purchases quite a bit of product from suppliers in Guangdong and makes a very nice profit selling sunglasses all over the world.

He told that his favorite international order was for a fairly expensive pair of sunglasses (very expensive once the international shipping was added). The buyer? A customer from the Guangdong Province. One that also wanted (and paid for) express shipping.

Could this Chinese buyer from the Optical Manufacturing Center of the Universe have purchased the same pair of sunglasses just down the road (so to speak) for pennies on the dollar?

Yup. But he didn't. He went online and bought it from a U.S. online store.

There is a lot of opportunity out there. Make sure your organization gets it. And that it gets going when it comes to prioritizing international and cross-border e-commerce.

Until next time,

Cheers

Chinese e-Commerce Looks to the Future

As long as we're examining e-commerce dynamics in and around China, let's start by looking at the Forrester forecasts for 2010-2015.

IR reports that China's online retail sales are expected to more than triple to $159.4 billion in 2015 from $48.8 billion this year.

Zia Daniell Wigder's report, “Asia Pacific Online Retail Forecast, 1010 to 1015," only includes consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer transactions. Not included is the booming B-to-B/wholesale e-commerce trade (both domestic and cross-border) that is attracting entire villages to e-commerce [link]. We'll keep an eye out for these stats (but don't count on a highly accurate total anytime soon).

Most e-commerce sales in China are presently concentrated in major cities, where thousands of traders buy products in nearby markets and sell them online, relying heavily on Taobao.com.

Online apparel is huge, attracting more than half of both male and female online shoppers. Taobao.com dominates online retail in China, but others including Amazon.com Inc. are also active in the market.

China Outbound: The Cross-Border B-to-B Picture
Hopefully this side of the equation will become more clear in the years to come. PayPal's new venture with the Chinese government , designed to facilitate outbound e-commerce order volume, could provide a snapshot. Click here for our deeper dive on the story.

PayPal's recent report on global cross-border sales pointed to Hong Kong (96%) and mainland China (90%) as countries with the most international e-commerce sales through PayPal.

Deals like PayPal's e-commerce hub in Chongqing likely means we'll see more and more Chinese manufacturers and wholesalers providing products to online merchants of all sizes all around the world.

We should also start to see more of these hubs popping up in places like Vietnam, where brands around the world are starting to shift manufacturing as Chinese labor costs start to rise.

But even as other countries get in the mix, there is no doubt that by 2015 China's volume of domestic and cross-border e-commerce will dwarf the $160 billion projections for its consumer-based domestic e-commerce.

So until next time,

Cheers