Despite being the nation's capital, southern provinces top e-commerce statistics.
According to leading C2C e-commerce platform Taobao.com, an arm of Alibaba Group, the top 10 provinces with highest online shopping spends are Shanghai, Zhejian, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Tianjin, Beijing and Liaoning.
The study took place between October 2014 and September 2015 and showed that e-commerce spend were higher in provinces located near the southeast coast. This is likely to be the result of higher income levels and fierce competition between e-commerce and logistics providers driving down costs.
Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai accounted for some 15% of the total packages delivered on China's Singles Day on November 11th, the largest national online shopping holiday globally. Surprisingly, the remote western province of Xinjiang surpassed Beijing for average mothly spend as decentralised shoppers looked for ways to access a wider array of products at a lower cost.
For producers looking at gaining market share in more remote or diversified provinces, a well-equipped e-commerce network could help capture an increasingly sophisitcated purchasing group.