Shopping channel sales in China hit 10.5 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) last year, up 87.5 percent from 2004, and are set to soar further over the next decade, according to a media research report.

The joint report by the organizing committee of the Shanghai Television Festival and the Beijing-based CSM Media Research Company forecast China's TV shopping sales would hit 20 billion yuan this year. Sales could reach 500 billion yuan over the next 10 years, equal to about 3 percent of total retail sales, it said.

At present, TV shopping sales account for only 0.01 percent of China's total retail sales

The report also said the rapid growth in TV sales was coupled with the expansion of TV shopping programs, which were on the air for 93,000 hours in 2007, up 82 percent from 2006 and more than double the 2004 level,

Home supplies and cell phones top the lists of TV shoppers, followed by home appliances, beauty products, digital products and computers.

But although TV shopping made its debut in China back in 1992, it has yet to win the same trust among and popularity with Chinese consumers as shopping in ordinary department stores.

For example, 76 percent of the study's 1,251 interviewees in 10 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Changsha, Xi'an, Suzhou, Xiamen, Qingdao and Dalian) told telephone researchers they had watched a TV shopping program in the past six months, but only 10.53 percent actually made a purchase.

And 82.35 percent of the interviewees believed that "TV shopping was merely another form of advertisement."

The report said the low level of consumer confidence was the result of loose government supervision and lack of industry standards, among other problems.