Tencent's WeChat has more than 800 million users. (Photo : Getty Images)
In a recent meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, businessmen expressed excitement over the rising profits produced by e-commerce.
Scott Williams, vice president of AmCham Shanghai, said that the future for China's e-commerce market is promising.
He said, "Cross-border e-commerce is estimated to be worth $86 billion. The overall e-commerce sector in China employs 3 million people and provides, on top of that, indirectly over 20 million more jobs."
The increase in e-commerce is manifested by the uphill trend of WeChat membership and heightened activity online.
Recently, Tencent's WeChat registered 806 million active users this year.
"It's very easy to connect with those communities as you join WeChat groups in all those areas," said Williams.
Based on a study done by research company Boston Consultancy Group, "Growth rates in the e-Commerce market are still very high and China principally has become not only one of the largest, but one of the most fascinated e-Commerce markets. China will have around 380 million online shoppers by 2016."
Yi Qian, global business development director of Alibaba Group, believes that the Chinese consumers' interest in imported products is driving more cross-border transactions.
He said, "The fast growth of e-commerce will bring a lot of opportunities to those import and export companies in China."
"The strong export B2C helped a lot of Chinese companies to build their brands globally. There are a lot of opportunities for growth. Last year, I visited a lot of small companies. They started with one or two people and did right by focusing on cross-border e-commerce. Now they have become publicly listed companies," he said.
B2C in China is now reaching 14.8 percent of the country's retail sector, and exceeding the U.S.'s 8 to 9 percent.
