In 2014, state authorities issued dozens of policies and decrees to regulate online retailing, cross-border online retailing, mobile terminals retailing as well as distribution and financial sector, including Administrative Measures of Online Trading, Notices on Tax Policies for Cross-Border Retail Export in E-commerce, Notices on the Pilot Project for the Joint Development of E-commerce and Logistics Express, Provisions on the Procedures for Formulating Transaction Rules of Third-party Online Retail Platforms (for Trial Implementation) and so on. These documents facilitated the development of cross-border e-commerce, innovations in supporting businesses such as distribution and payment and the joint development of the whole industrial chain, and safeguarded legal rights and interests of consumers and third-party operation platforms, thus enabling rapid and sound growth of online retail. In particular, the “return without reason within 7 days” provision in Administrative Measures of Online Trading gained good effects. According to a CNNIC survey, among the users who had returned some goods without reason within 7 days after they bought them, 75% were completely successful. This provision unleashed the purchasing desire of consumers. 

In 2014, the number of online shoppers, which had already been large, continued to grow by ten millions, making the coverage of online shopping reach 55.7%. Meanwhile, mobile shopping witnessed dramatic development, with the number of users growing by 63.5% annually. The number of mobile shoppers increased 3.2 times as fast as that of online shoppers as a whole. Such continuous prosperity made enterprises advance their strategic plan. For example, Alibaba built e-commerce service climate through reorganization and industrial chain integration; JD.com tried such new business structure as “buying by air" through engaging O2O and financial sector; Vip.com launched cross-border e-commerce and online financial business to develop new growth engine; Dangdang.com launched sellers service business and prioritized digital reading and mobile e-commerce, making distribution chain closer to consumers; Suning.cn entered FMCG market to plan their local services, and increased its share holdings of PPTV for inter-sector integration; Yhd.com entered supply chain financing, developing mobile e-commerce through the integration of WeChat business.

China’s online retail kept a rapid growth in trade value, with the annual sales standing at 2.7898 trillion yuan, an increase of 49.7% year on year. Total annual transactions reached 17.3 billion, meaning that on average each person would conduct 48 transactions a year.　Online shopping accounted for 14.2% on average in daily expenditure, and among 76.1% of online shoppers, this figure was 20%. Meanwhile, online shoppers enjoyed more diversified options in paying method, driving the rapid development of online payment. The proportions of shoppers choosing third-party payment account, Internet banking, quick payment and mobile payment were 82.9%, 65.3%, 53.8% and 52.6% respectively, all of which were higher than that of shoppers choosing pay on delivery (49.7%).

Social media e-commerce enjoys solid foundation and enabling climate in China, for the online shopper group mostly overlaps with social media real time communication users. For example,the online shopper group overlaps mostly with WeChat users, with 70.6% of online shoppers being WeChat users. Among the people who use both social media and online shopping, 33.8% finally become users of social media shopping. As such shopping shortens users’ time of decision, social media shopping goods with intensive promotion can gain viral marketing effects, thus boasting a large potential. Overseas shopping also soared in China. In 2014, cross-border B2C business was launched on major online retailing platforms including Tmall, JD.com, Suning.cn, etc. Although only 4.8% of online shoppers had overseas online shopping experience in 2014, this figure will rise remarkably as such business is launched by more e-commerce platforms in China.