Marketing Channels and Supply Chain Management in Contemporary Globalism

Abstract

When Alibaba Inc. started Taobao.com in 2003, there were only a handful of Internet sellers trading online, mostly in second-hand products. Ten years later, China's e-commerce has become the world's largest in terms of total consumer spending, surpassing that of the USA. The expanding service sector within the e-business industry, growing popularity of mobile phones, increased number of Internet users, and extensive competition in the e-commerce industry contribute to the astounding growth of China's Internet market. Despite all the optimism, there are still many issues challenging the development of e-commerce in China, particularly the constraints presented in the domestic and international supply chain systems. In this chapter, the authors review the present market conditions of the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) markets in China, analyze the critical factors of future development, and discuss the implications for online businesses.