reply The future of e-commerce is in China

The Chinese market is much bigger and more creative when it comes to e-commerce, according to an article in the January 2 issue of The Economist titled "China's Mall". The full text is excerpted below:In the past 10 months most people in the rich world have joined the biggest shopping revolution in the west since shopping centres and supermarkets took over the suburbs 50 years ago. The epidemic led to a surge in online consumption, which accelerated the transition from physical to online stores by about five years.Yet, as we explain this week, the future of e-commerce is emerging in China, not the west. Its market is much larger and more creative, with tech companies fusing e-commerce, social media and gimmicks to become an online shopping center for 850 million digital consumers. And China is at the forefront of regulation. News reports on Dec. 24 said antitrust authorities were building a case against Alibaba Group. For a century, consumer companies around the world have looked to America for new trends. Now they should look east.Today, China's e-commerce retail market is worth $2 trillion, more than the United States and Europe combined. But in addition to its sheer size, it is also markedly different from the e-commerce industry of the past and the West in important ways.First, it's more dynamic. Over the past few years, new competitors, including Meituan and Pinduoduo, have matured with vibrant business models. Intense competition has also led e-commerce and other technology companies to break down the boundaries between different types of services that are still common in the west. The click model is outdated: China's online shopping platforms now combine digital payments, group buying, social media, gaming, instant messaging, short video and live streaming.The obvious trillion-dollar question is whether China's e-commerce model will go global. As has been the case for decades, Silicon Valley titans still tend to underestimate China. The organisation of western companies has long been a cosy, old-fashioned "silo" model. So Visa is focused on payments, Amazon on ecommerce, Facebook on social media, Google on search, and so on.However secure and siloed western e-retailing may seem, it is unlikely to become the dominant way of shopping in the world today. Outside the rich world, the Chinese way has become increasingly popular. Several major e-commerce companies in Southeast Asia, India and Latin America are affected by China's strategy. Big consumer-goods companies that straddle the Western and Chinese markets may also spread Chinese ideas and business strategies.These characteristics of China are already on display in the western retail heartland, in part because of the pandemic. As companies diversify, silos are disintegrating. On Christmas Eve, Walmart hosted its first live shopping event on TikTok.Even so, there are antitrust concerns, but China's antitrust regulators are also keen to promote competition. This means forcing interoperability, for example, by making a payment service on one e-commerce platform work seamlessly on a competitor's. It also means preventing e-commerce companies from penalizing merchants who sell goods on more than one platform. So far, antitrust authorities in the United States and Europe have been weak in reining in big technology companies. They should also look at China to see where the industry is going and how to respond.There is a model for how the West sees Chinese innovation. Advances in Chinese manufacturing, from electronics to solar panels, are either ignored or dismissed as copycat, then belittled and grudgingly recognised around the world. Now, it is the preferences and habits of Chinese consumers that are going global. Pay attention and learn from it.