jd.com Leads All Chinese eCommerce Categories

According to the Statista Digital Market Outlook, China’s eCommerce market generated a total revenue of more than US$715 billion in 2018. This makes it the by far the biggest eCommerce market in the world, outperforming the second biggest market, the U.S., by almost US$400 billion. With a CAGR of 12% up to 2023, the overall Chinese eCommerce market is also expected to undergo substantial growth in the near future.

The top 5 Chinese online stores in terms of first-party net sales produced a combined US$123 billion in net sales in 2019, following a growth of 52% in just two years. Among them, jd.com is the clear leader. The Chinese B2C online shopping generalist generated net sales of US$74.2 billion in 2019. Second-in-line suning.com follows with a gap of more than US$50 billion. But not only in general terms does jd.com outperform the rest. It dominates the market in all five eCommerce product categories.

The clearest jd.com lead can be seen for the category Food & Personal Care, in which the store recorded net sales of US$12.3 billion in 2018. Fashion is the category in which the top 5 first-party retailers are closest together in terms of market shares. Jd.com owed US$9.2 billion or 15% of its net sales in 2018 to the Fashion category.

Fashion is the category in which the top 5 first-party retailers are closest together, with no obvious leader standing out. JD.com still performs best, though, with Fashion net sales of US$9.2 billion. This represents 15% of the store’s overall net sales in 2018.

The ranks 2 to 5 in the respective categories do not follow the same logic: Only vip.com and suning.com come in second in more than one category. In Furniture & Appliances, it is midea.cn that is the second biggest store by first-party net sales. Suning.com is still present in all category top 5 rankings, though, and vip.com makes it into 4 out of 5 top category ranks.

Although jd.com has built up a remarkable buffer in the Chinese market, resting on their laurels might not be the best idea. In terms of net sales growth, jd.com only runs with the pack. Growth records are set by others.

Are you interested in a comprehensive overview of the Chinese eCommerce market? By ordering our ecommerceDB.com Country Report “eCommerce in Greater China 2019”, you will gain access to detailed consumer insights, market trends and KPI analyses, top store analyses, and a full list of the leading 500 online stores in China.

Note: ecommerceDB only considers online stores that generate first-party sales. Third-party sales from marketplaces or hybrid platforms like Alibaba or Amazon Marketplace are not included in the top stores rankings.