In the pre Corona period, statistics show 2019 as an year of continued growth in textiles and apparel online sales to conclude 6.69 trillion Yuan, up by 12.06 percent Year- on- Year. B2B ecommerce sales topped taking a lion-share of 73.24 percent at 4.9 trillion Yuan. Online retail sales of apparel/home-textiles maintain an impressive share of 19.6 percent of all the online shops, selling all types of goods in the country. Also, it is significant to know; online share of sales of offline players is growing and reaches touches up to 22percent.

On May 13, China Commercial Circulation Association of Textile and Apparel (CATA) issued an annual report (E-Commerce of Textile and Apparel 2019) that gives a panoramic view of the textiles and apparel sales online, a very good source of information for readers to understand shopping behaviour, in spite of the slowdown in brick-and-mortar.

Executive summary 

The year of 2019 witnessed a stable growth in textile industry in the process of the reforms on the front of supplies, industrial transformation and upgradation while putting efforts to withstand the risks of the economic down. As e-commerce system has been evolving and growing to a big scale, the textile and apparel online sales, that had experienced high-speed growth in the e-commerce during pre-matured phase, is now getting into an evolved new model, new business practice and new consumption phase through increased digitalization process. 2019 was a year of continued growth in textiles and apparel online sales to conclude 6.69 trillion Yuan, up by 12.06 percent Year- on- Year.

Online Business for the whole textile industry in trillion Yuan

unit: trillion Yuan in blue bar, red curve for growth rate

B2B leads the total e-commerce pack 

As calculated, the total turnover of online sales for textiles and apparel reached 6.69 trillion Yuan, B2B stood out at the top, amounting to 4.9 trillion Yuan, taking a lion-share by 73.24 percent, while apparel and home-textiles combined to reach sales of 1.67 trillion online retail. While the overall growth continues to drop from 32.14 percent in 2012 to 12.06 percent in 2019 (indicated above in red), as in the initial years, the total base value wasn’t as high.

B2B online deal in trillion Yuan

unit: trillion Yuan in blue, growth rate in red curve, and share of total sales in green curve

Textiles/apparel sector enjoys 19.5% share in sales

Although B2B is growing by 10.61 percent and still dominating in value in the total sales of textiles/apparel sector, but it is 15.97 percent growth rate of the online retail of apparel/home-textiles that speaks louder. Just to mention, online retail of apparel/home-textiles has an impressive share of 19.6 percent across the all goods online shops in the country, observing from 14 important e-commerce retail platforms monitored by Ministry of Commerce ( MoC). The statistics from MoC databank show that there are 19.469 million online retail shops, out of which the apparel and home-textile shops takes up leading 33.1 percent in total share.

Apparel and Hometextiles Retails in trillion Yuan

unit: trillion Yuan in blue bar, and growth rate in red curve

Online sales share of offline players reaches upto 22%

In the report, China Commercial Circulation Association of Textiles and Apparel (CATA) particularly pointed out that the brick-and-mortar textile and apparel-specific wholesale markets (yarn, fabric, home-textiles, knitwear, and garment buildings/complexes, sales center or specialty markets, etc) through e-commerce to touch 1.47 trillion Yuan, up by 8.89 percent, representing 21.97 percent the total online retails for textiles and apparel. Apparently, that is the way forward for all the off-line specialty shops or garment buildings/complexes to align with the tide of online boom.

Contributed by Mr. ZHAO Hong 

He is working for CHINA TEXTILE magazine as Editor-in-Chief in addition to being involved in a plethora of activities for the textile industry. He has worked for the Engineering Institute of Ministry of Textile Industry, and for China National Textile Council and continues to serve the industry in the capacity of Deputy Director of China Textile International Exchange Centre, V. President  of China Knitting Industry Association, V. President of China Textile Magazine and its Editor-in-Chief for the English Version, Deputy Director of News Centre of China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC), Deputy Director of International Trade Office, CNTAC, Deputy Director of China Textile Economic Research Centre. He was also elected once ACT Chair of Private Sector Consulting Committee of International Textile and Clothing Bureau (ITCB)