China e-commerce size may be bigger than thought

With the rise of China's middle class and consumption power, e-commerce is booming in the country. Though it's difficult to provide accurate statistics, many analysts say that current numbers are actually a conservative estimate.

Not only individuals, but more and more companies are now purchasing their goods online. They also gather information about suppliers on the web.

"E-commerce has changed the old way of doing business, online shopping is taking a much bigger portion of the total consumption every year. Not only retail, but the wholesale purchases of enterprises can now be completed online too," said Shan Ren, expert of China E-Commerce Association

The variety of products that can be purchased online is also growing by the day. While in the past, mainly real products were bought, consumers today can order services on the internet.

"The online volume of purchases made in the service sector is rising over two times every year. There are now many different services on sale on the internet, and the number of some services bought online now even exceed those offline," CEO of 58.com Yao Jinbo said.

As E-commerce is now rapidly developing and changing everyday, some analysts believe that the statistics of the sector are not reflecting the reality and might be under estimated.

"The B2B sector is now growing at a rate of over 40 percent, or an increase of 6 to 7 trillion yuan, every year. Some businesses have seen a huge transformation. Trading used to happen in concrete stores but is now being done online. However, these figures are not counted in the statistics yet, "said Shan Ren, expert of China E-Commerce Association.

Shan further explains that in 2012, the sales amount of clothes on taobao.com and Tmall.com alone was nearly 100 billion yuan more than in 2011, thanks to online shopping. If the statistics still use the concrete stores data as in the past and do not include the online figures, the result would indicate that China's clothing industry is not performing as well as it does.