(by Professor Zheng Changzhong on the Way to the Central and Eastern European Countries’ Special Commodities Pavilion at Noon on May 22, 2025)
Good morning, journalists! The destination we are heading to next is sure to spark your interest – a shopping tour. En route, I’d like to provide an overview of a new business model that has emerged in China’s commercial development in recent years: the basic trajectory of e-commerce growth.
In the 1990s, China fully advanced the construction of a socialist market economy. Concurrently, in 1994, China officially accessed the international internet, gradually stepping into the internet era. The exploration of Chinese e-commerce germinated as early as the 1990s, with 1999 marking a pivotal starting point – Alibaba, which we will visit in Hangzhou in a few days, was founded that year, symbolizing the launch of China’s network economy with the internet as its core platform.
Around 2000, China’s internet upgraded from narrowband to broadband technology, accelerating the construction of networked society and virtual spaces. People’s living spaces expanded from a single physical dimension to a coexistence of “physical + virtual” dual spaces. Although e-commerce had not yet entered an explosive growth phase, the technological foundation laid during this period foreshadowed subsequent development. From 2003 onwards, with the rise of platforms like Taobao, Chinese e-commerce truly ushered in explosive growth.
In 2010, the rapid popularization of smartphones brought about a wave of mobile internet, propelling Chinese e-commerce into a new round of high-speed development centered on mobile terminals. Mobile shopping gradually became the mainstream consumption method.
In 2015, the birth of Pinduoduo became a significant milestone in e-commerce development. Its innovative social group-purchasing model allowed consumers to form teams with relatives and friends for bargain hunting and group buying, while also opening channels for individual storefronts. This pushed e-commerce to extend from traditional B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) models to a more social and decentralized form. The combination of “low-price group buying + direct agricultural product supply + individual merchant participation” not only activated consumption potential in lower-tier markets but also provided new entrepreneurial paths for small and medium-sized businesses and farmers.
In recent years, with the iterative upgrading of digital technologies and the gradual popularization of 5G networks, information transmission efficiency has significantly improved, and live-streaming e-commerce has rapidly emerged. Anchors conduct promotions through real-time interaction and scene-based product displays, reconstructing the “people-goods-place” consumption chain and further enhancing the market competitiveness of e-commerce, making it a new engine driving industry growth.
The development of e-commerce has not only reshaped the business landscape but also spawned brand-new occupational forms and industrial ecosystems. Take logistics and distribution as an example: the “last mile” demand of e-commerce retail has directly driven the rapid expansion of the express delivery industry. To date, it has created millions of jobs, forming a broad occupational system covering sorters, couriers, and supply chain management talents.
The borderless nature of the internet has accelerated the rise of cross-border e-commerce. By building digital trade platforms, Chinese consumers can easily purchase global products, while Chinese local brands have also taken this opportunity to enter international markets), promoting the two-way flow of “buying globally” and “selling globally” and becoming a new driving force in international trade.
In the context of urban-rural integration, e-commerce has played a pivotal role. Relying on innovative models such as live-streaming sales and community group buying, agricultural products and handicrafts from deep in the mountains have broken through geographical limitations and reached the tables of urban consumers. Particularly in China’s battle to win the poverty alleviation campaign and historically solve the problem of absolute poverty, the e-commerce-assisted agricultural model has activated the hematopoietic capacity of rural industries through a combination of “live-streaming promotion + logistics connectivity + brand cultivation,” becoming an important grasp for consolidating poverty alleviation achievements and connecting rural revitalization.
Overall, the emergence of e-commerce benefited from internet technology, changing business models, employment patterns, and work styles, and promoting urban-rural interaction and global trade. Since reform and opening up, China has actively embraced new technologies and applied them to economic life, driving changes in social lifestyles and governance models and giving rise to new cultural phenomena. In this process, China has continuously improved laws, policies, and management models to ensure that new technologies better serve the people. For emerging technologies such as digital technology, network technology, and artificial intelligence, China has promoted their rapid application through joint efforts from both top-down and bottom-up approaches, exerting a profound impact on all aspects of the social economy, while the new generation of young people has rapidly adapted in an environment of rapid technological development.
The above is a brief introduction to the impact of digital technology on China, using e-commerce as an example. After visiting Alibaba in Hangzhou in the next few days, we will discuss in more detail and comprehensively the impacts and changes brought about by digital technology development to Chinese society in combination with practical situations. Now, as we are about to arrive at the shopping venue, the virtual online experience is far inferior to the pleasure of physically touching and purchasing goods. Let’s go and enjoy the real-life shopping experience!
*The views and opinions expressed in the articles are solely those of the individual authors and do not reflect the position of the Secretariat of the Belt and Road Journalist Network.