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For the first time in history, China is expected to overtake the United States to become the world’s largest retail market this year.
As China’s middle class grows in the country makes a shift to a consumer-driven economy, the Asian nation is poised to overtake the US as the largest retail market on the globe.
Overall retail sales in China for 2019 are forecast to grow by 7.5 percent, reaching $5.6 trillion.
This shift and retail marketplaces may indicate that US product manufacturers might want to begin developing a focus on promoting their goods to Chinese consumers.
Even though the retail sales for the United States are expected to increase by 3.3 percent in 2019, the overall total will reach $5.5 trillion falling below those in China by about $100 billion.
E-commerce retail sales are already dominated by China, who make up 35.3 percent of global online sales. Add to that, for 2019, China’s e-commerce sales are expected to grow by 30 percent, reaching $1.9 trillion.
Further, by the end of 2019, is expected that 55.8 percent of the world’s online retail sales will happen in China.
Incomes in China have been rising, and as millions of dollars transform the new middle class, where it’s created the world’s largest consumer market.
At least 53.3 percent of China’s e-commerce sales are expected to happen on the website Alibaba, which is an online market for both retail and purchases direct from distributors and manufacturers.
While Amazon is still the world’s largest retail site, with an estimated $177.8 billion in revenue in 2017, Alibaba ranks fifth with an estimated $39.9 billion in revenue. Second is Alphabet Inc. (Google), third is the Chinese e-commerce website JD.com (also known as Jingdong and formerly called 360buy), and forth is Facebook.
