c2c

China Tech Stories alerts us to a new report from CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center 中国互联网络信息中心, and no, it doesn’t match the acronym): 2006 Chinese C2C Online Sales Survey. In other words, a snapshot of what’s going on with person-to-person direct sales over the Internet, through online auctions, in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.  Highlights from press release (partly borrowing from Mao Xianjia’s translation at China Tech Stories):

• by the end of March 2006 there were 2 million C2C online customers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Shanghai had the highest penetration rate of 18.5%, followed by Beijing with 17.5%, and Guangzhou with 11.5%.
• Market share for the different auction sites in 2005 in the three cities, as calculated by number of purchasers and shopping frequency: Taobao is way ahead at 67.3%, eBay at 29.1%, Paipai 2.2% and Yipai 1.4%.
• In 2005 there were about 7.4 million reported online transactions across Taobao, eBay, Paipai and Yipai, with about 4.25 transactions/person on Taobao and just over 3 transactions/person on eBay.
• most frequently purchased items are apparel, cosmetics and jewelry,
  computers, mobile phones, appliances, and electronic card/virtual money, with fashion and IT products the frontrunners. [We’ll have to track this to see if we can get more specific data on virtual money transactions.]
• In contrast to B2C stats, women buyers and sellers outnumbered men in buying apparel, cosmetics and jewelry, food and health products, daily supplies,
  toys and baby supplies, pets and pet supplies.

link to CNNIC report (in Chinese)
link to press release (in Chinese)