Retail brands in China. Taken from a recent WPP survey

David Roth, co-author of The Thoughts of Chairman Now writes on his views on Retail brands in China.

As China rebalances there will be significant changes and challenges which bring with them tremendous opportunities. Retail is always fast moving, dynamic and change is a constant. The two together, retail in China, represent a potent recipe for success as long as you can orchestrate it. I  have put together, with Mike Smollan, from  Smollan the 8 key retail trends you should be watching out for and creating strategies and activities around. Will be posting each one over the next few days…Here is the first one.

The Irresistible Rise Of E-Commerce

e-commerce will continue to engulf many areas of retail worldwide, but it’s in China that we fully expect to see the biggest surge. So much that by the end of the Year of the Horse China will become the biggest e-commerce market in the universe. Rising digital penetration amongst the Chinese and the development of digital banking (see ‘bank in the hand’ below), is set to sharpen both the appetite and ability to purchase anything and everything online. Businesses like Taobao (consumer-to-consumer online retail) and Tmall (b2c online retail) are already leading the charge – and indeed Taobao’s creation of a safe and cheap option for everyone to be buyers and sellers in a digital market place looks set to cement e-commerce in Chinese daily life. It’s inevitable that as other enterprises realise that online can provide a greater return on investment, they will start to put more effort and resources into it. We foresee more and more businesses beginning to use the digital platform to stimulate their flat traditional retail sales, further fueling the digital retail revolution. Undoubtedly a key enabler of this continued growth will be China’s low cost, dynamic supply chain; products can be delivered swiftly with little or no extra cost to consumers and this, coupled with the decreasing amount of time available to visit stores physically, will help make online shopping a nationwide norm.