China e-Commerce market place been a very challenging market ever. There are currently more than 56Million online merchants in China, according to a recent report published by AliResearch-the leading C2C e-Commerce platform in China. The total market size for Online Retailing in China for Y2009 also topping RMB200Billion (Aprox US$30Billion), growth from RMB128Billion in Y2008; a huge growth of market since Year 2002 when C2C market start to get into mainstream.

Base on the research published in Mandarin from AliResearch, what interested to me more is the data showed that there is total 13.2% of the online retailers are fresh graduates from universities. It shows that more and more graduates students are directly enter into online entrepreneurship since their graduation. Just have this data in your brain, there are 7million students graduates from universities directly enter into setup their own webstore and sell online in China! With 87million online consumer buying and consuming basically everything sell online, this is a market that cant be neglect.

There is no reason why we get to know today from the Techcrunch that Baidu and Rakuten is forming a new alliance to tap into the China Online retailing industry. Both of the company will invest a total of US$50mil into this new JV and Rakuten will control majority stake in this new formation JV. This is not the first time for Rakuten to handle the new JV for oversea expansion. In early Y2008, Rakuten has setup their first e-Commerce expansion in Taiwan, follow by Europe. In Y2009, Rakuten form  a new JV in Thailand with a local e-Commerce partner. The company continue to expand their foot print in oversea expansion into Malaysia in late Y2009 – according to some source, they worked with local Internet Tycoon – Malaysia Online (MOL.COM) in Malaysia e-Commerce development roadmap. In early Y2010, they have new plan, and they are now put their focus on the Asia soon to be largest e-Commerce marketplace. 100Million of online consumers, over US$50bil of market in Y2012; and what else, a fast growing of income level in all level of workforces in China that making them consume basically all the ‘import branded products’ from ‘Out of China’.

The strategic move, from my point of view, is pretty interesting as we can see in Y2010, another new high for e-Commerce development in Asia, particulary for China e-Marketplace. For instance, majority of these mid-income level netizens would like to consume and purchase ‘oversea’ branded products that rather than cheap and ‘look-alike’ products that are ‘made in China, brand by oversea’. Rakuten will employ the same strategies as they did for Taiwan market, to continue to ‘export’ Japanese products into neighbouring countries.

As I always believe, the Year 2010 will be a very exciting year for E-Commerce. The development of Internet has enter a new era where everything is going to be so realistic about turning CPM or your adveritising dollar into sales profit. Forget about a million of click through, or billion of impression if nothing convert into placement of orders. Show me the money, will be the most concern for business during this recovering period. More and more traditional retailers are seeking for ‘reasonable’ expansion to oversea. Rakuten model of exporting Jap products through B2C model into countries like Taiwan or China, are the model we are having the cross-selling model you can find in SMilDS.COM. As I said, the Y2010 is a rising year for e-Commerce! Fun and excitement!~ :)