Shanghai's e-commerce sector strong in Q1

Shanghai saw the e-commerce sector grow strongly in the first quarter despite the COVID-19 outbreak.

In the January-March period, the city’s online shopping posted a total trade volume of 134.3 billion yuan (US$19 billion), up 19.1 percent from a year earlier, growing against the economic downtrend amid the pandemic, according to the Shanghai Commission of Commerce.

“Focusing on the Shanghai Shopping brand, we have seized the opportunity of online economic growth, promoting innovative development of e-commerce and the transformation and upgrading of consumption in recent years,” said Liu Min, deputy director of the commission.

The city’s e-commerce sector posted a total turnover of 3.32 trillion yuan in 2019, an increase of 14.7 percent year on year, to account for nearly 10 percent of the overall amount in China, maintaining Shanghai’s leading role among all cities in the country.

Liu noted the advantages of e-commerce offering life services, with more than 2,000 community smart micro-markets having been set up in the city. Meanwhile, some 10-billion-yuan-level industry bases of fresh food e-commerce are forming. The e-commerce platforms selling fresh food have become an important force to guarantee market supply during the pandemic.

Unmanned retail and contactless delivery have also developed rapidly, with more cashierless stores and over 30,000 smart delivery cabinets seen in the city.

Some e-commerce logistics companies also provide merchants and supermarkets with a full set of solutions covering the whole chain from warehousing, picking, hand-over to delivery, to achieve delivery within an hour for orders via all channels.

For instance, Dada Group, a platform for local on-demand retail and delivery, has helped retailers and brands continue to grow during the pandemic. 

From January 27 to February 13, total sales via Dada platforms in Shanghai surged by 480 percent year on year, among which cereals, grain, edible oil and non-staple food increased 770 percent, meat products rose sharply by 1,050 percent, and vegetable sales were up 770 percent, said Yang Jun, Dada’s co-founder.

Also, the influence of professional e-commerce platforms is increasing, Liu said.

In one case, the city's professional automobile e-commerce service platforms are offering users "online booking + offline installation" services. The number of outlets has exceed 1,500 throughout the country, with the offline service network covering 405 cities.