Change of channel brings opportunities

"First of all, Ningbo has its own port, and it can handle large volumes of cargo. Ningbo-Zhoushan port is the world's largest port in terms of annual cargo throughput. We have a dedicated warehouse to store the goods and well-established logistics. On those things, cities such as Chongqing, Hangzhou and Zhengzhou can't beat us."

Xia Qun, deputy director of the administrative committee of the Ningbo free trade zone.

Six months after the Ningbo free trade zone opened, its e-commerce website ranked as No 1 among the five in terms of volume, Xia says.

"By May 12, the five cities had transacted 60,000 orders for goods through cross-border e-commerce, and Ningbo accounted for 28,000 of them."

Another reason for Ningbo's success is that its services focus on fast-moving consumer goods such as nappies, milk, and infant formula, for which the tax rate remains at 10 percent. For luxury goods such as designer handbags, the personal baggage and postal tax can be as high as 50 percent.

"While Shanghai's operation sells luxury products, our focus is more closely related to people's daily lives," Xia says.

"We are conveying the fact that imported goods don't have to be expensive. In fact, anyone can afford them."

"This year we aim to have sales revenue of more than 100 million yuan. And by the end of next year we expect revenue to exceed 2 billion yuan to make Ningbo the country's largest e-commerce base for fast-moving consumer goods.

Moximoxi.net is a website that has specialized in selling Japanese goods to Chinese customers since 2010. It became one of the 11 companies that operate through the Ningbo free trade zone e-commerce website.

Yin Haoran, Moximoxi.net's operations director, says that 20 percent of its revenue has come through kjb2c.com since it opened this year. It has taken 2.5 million yuan in revenue through the website and expects monthly sales to reach 2 to 3 million yuan by the end of this year, Yin says.