Alibaba's Tmall achieved record sales of 213.5 billion yuan (US$30.7 billion) during its annual Nov 11 'Singles' Day' shopping event, the 10th anniversary of the shopping festival.
In an editorial, news portal Guancha.cn claimed the path of Chinese e-commerce development could not be replicated in other countries.
China's population is crucial to the development of e-commerce. The vast population provides a broad market as well as cheap labor. High-density populations are critical to the logistics industry since delivery costs are inversely proportional to population density. Higher density means more deliveries, lower costs and ultimately a more developed industry. The density of China's big cities has significantly reduced delivery costs, allowing free shipping services to flourish.
Second, the population also provides cheap labor which had made the rapid development of the logistics industry possible.
E-commerce in China is also thriving due to the decline in offline stores which have been unable to satisfy customer demand, with e-commerce thriving in its place.
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