E-commerce boom brings shopping revolution

BEIJING - As shopping malls in Beijing were gearing up for the Christmas sales with dazzling decorations and price promotions, Lin Fangfang instead glued her eyes on her favorite online shopping site.

"With just a mouse click, you can buy high-quality stuff online at much lower prices, so why bother to go to shopping malls in the freezing weather and spend more?" asks the 31-year-old employee of an advertising company in China's capital.

Lin's online bargains ranged from a pair of leather gloves to a refrigerator, from organic vegetables to cooking utensils. The prices were at least half those found in shopping malls, and she even managed to buy some of them at 70 percent off the regular price.

"Online shopping has become an important part of my life, and I even downloaded an online shopping app to my mobile, so that I am free to shop wherever I am," Lin grins.

Shopping revolution

Lin's shopping preferences in the festive season sum up an excellent year for e-commerce in China, and a significant shift in consumers away from the high street as online vendors are expecting bumper Christmas sales.

She is just one of the millions of online shoppers who contributed to more than 1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) in revenue reaped in the first 11 months of 2012 by China's two biggest e-commerce platforms, Tmall.com and Taobao.com -- both affiliated with China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding.

Alibaba took in 19.1 billion yuan ($3.06 billion) on China's Nov 11 'Singles' Day,' dubbed the world's largest online shopping spree. The revenue was twice that of this year's Cyber Monday, the United States equivalent.

A total of 6.4 billion yuan ($1 billion) was taken by 5,000 shopping outlets in Shanghai during the seven-day National Day holiday this year, and that amount was topped by Alibaba within half a day on Nov 11, according to the company's own statistics.