Taobao reveals online shopping trends for 2010

Apparel and cosmetics remained the most popular categories. The 48,000 items sold every minute included 864 pieces of clothing, 880 cosmetic products, 85 books, 53 packs of diapers, 36 mobile phones and 13 light fixtures

The average number of transactions per user grew by 35 percent year-on-year with sales of home furnishings and food, normally thought of as offline purchases, surging last year by 120 per cent and 95 per cent respectively.

In addition to strong increases in online retail, mobile shopping demonstrated strong potential, registering a single-day high gross merchandise value (GMV or the value of merchandise sold across the platform) of RMB37 million (US$5.58 million) and 17 million daily unique visitors.

The Taobao data also showed that retail e-commerce is growing strongly across China. While coastal regions continued to have the highest GMV totals, provinces in the central and western regions saw the biggest year-on-year GMV growth in 2010.

While men made up the greater proportion of total online shoppers (54 per cent) and were the bigger spenders, women bought more items. Men tended to purchase goods with higher price points such as consumer electronics, household appliances and sports shoes while women tended to purchase goods on the lower end of the pricing scale such as clothing, food and accessories.