Leading distribution channels for purchasing apparels China 2019

In 2019, more than one-fourth of China’s apparel was sold in department stores. Meanwhile, online retailing accounted for 34.3 percent of the total apparel sales that year.

The burgeoning online fashion shopping

China’s fashion industry has taken flight in recent years, owing to the proliferation of e-commerce. Affordable prices and unconditional return policies have attracted both rural deal seekers and busy urban office workers. As of 2019, around 70 percent of Chinese consumers said they had purchased clothing online. As a result, clothing and footwear have become China’s largest online retail category based on sales revenue. In 2020 alone, apparel retailers in China generated approximately 1.8 billion yuan in revenue from online retail business, soaring from 220 million yuan in 2011.

Live shopping on the rise

Many say that live streaming is the future of online retail. In China, the trendy retail platform has attracted around 388 million users and archived exponential growth in market size in the past three years. Apart from the traditional online shopping experience with only pictures and text descriptions, live commerce provides users with more real-time insights into the products. According to a survey, apparel was the most popular product category among Chinese live streaming shoppers.