Taiwan's annual ecommerce growth has hovered around 15% for several years. Economic expert, Wang Yizhi, suggests some ways to get those numbers up.
Wang Yizhi, a senior industry analyst and group leader for the Institute of Information Industry, says that Taiwan has seen a 17.4% increase in commerce since from last year's numbers. Taiwan's ecommerce industry is currently valued at 660 billion yuan, roughly 1 billion USD. Wang predicts that ecommerce will grow because more consumers are starting to buy online, more retail businesses are using ecommerce, and the government is offering more support for online business. This year, the B2C (Business to Consumer) ecommerce amounted to 385.2 billion yuan, while C2C (Consumer to Consumer) ecommerce accounted about 275 billion yuan.
However, if Taiwan's ecommerce industry makes no significant changes in the near future, its value may plateau. For the past few years, the industry has maintained a steady growth rate of around 15% per year. If Taiwanese ecommerce can establish a firm foothold in mainland China, its value would rise exponentially. Nonetheless, Taiwan can expect the value of ecommerce to rise to 764.5 billion yuan next year.
As of now, much of Taiwan's ecommerce targets a predominantly female consumer base with clothing, accessories, beauty products, and specialty food. Wang points out that an untapped consumer group, the 30 to 39 year-old office workers, can be targeted for further business growth.
Some consumers are worried about shopping online, voicing concerns such as Internet instability, limited quality of goods, poor safety regulations, and security of online payments. Businesses can improve upon those issues to bring in new customers.
Source: chinatimes.com.cn