The bottleneck in China’s e-commerce industry appears to be logistics, or how to get the goods from the warehouse to the customer.
E-commerce is the fastest-growing internet activity in China, a nation with the most netizens than anywhere in the world.
According to the China Internet Network Information Center, the number of online shoppers increased by almost 50% to 160 million in 2010.
The Chinese online-shopping market grew by more than 370% year-on-year in terms of sales, reaching RMB520 billion (US$79 billion) last year, research company Analysys International said.
Lagging far behind is the logistics development needed to support such expansion. The Chinese Logistics Association said 2.4 billion packages were delivered in 2010, an increase of 30% year-on-year.
However, delivery capacity could not accommodate the gigantic demand from the 370% growth rate in e-commerce.
English.News.cn reports the gap between e-commerce and logistics provides opportunities to e-commerce giants and VC investors.