Slowdown, what slowdown? Outlook strong for China’s cross-border online shopping

Despite a slowing economy, Chinese consumers’ online spending on foreign goods is expected to remain strong in the next five years.

Market research firm Mintel on Monday forecast China’s cross-border online shopping market to grow 18 per cent each year to 2020.

In 2015, the market ballooned by more than 60 per cent, according to Haitao Retailing, Mintel’s first report on the topic.

“The reason we chose to do this report was both due to Haitao becoming so large, and because this market is now becoming well-regulated, and encouraged by the central government,” said the report’s author Matthew Crabbe.

“This was therefore clearly an important development in China’s international trade, its domestic consumer market, and as a route to entry for foreign companies hoping to sell to Chinese consumers.”

Nearly 60 per cent of 3,000 consumers surveyed by the firm said they had bought foreign products online from domestic shopping websites between June and November last year.