Taiwan has been ranked the sixth-biggest retail export hub in the Greater China region, for the amount of products it sells on EBay to overseas buyers, according to a survey released on Thursday by US e-commerce giant EBay Inc.
The report, titled 2013 Greater China Retail Export Industry Landscape, surveyed more than 800 e-commerce sellers in the region for transaction data from July last year to June this year and found that the five places that registered the most sales overseas were Guangdong, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Beijing.
Taiwan’s sixth place in terms of transaction value is a result of its long history in conducting trade, its mature system for sellers, and its sufficient supply of workers with a specialty in trade, said John Lin (林奕彰), EBay’s vice president and CEO of the company’s Greater China branch.
“We believe that the retail export industry is entering a new phase marked by more holistic growth and greater professionalism, as local sellers are leveraging local resources and developing specialty product categories,” he told a press briefing.
The top-five product categories with the highest transaction value for Taiwanese sellers were costume and accessories, photographic equipment, automobile accessories, sports goods, and computers and accessories, according to EBay’s survey.
Mature markets like the US, Australia and the UK still accounted for the bulk of Taiwanese sellers’ transaction value, while sales in emerging markets such as Argentina, Brazil and Russia posted the fastest growth, the survey showed.
According to market research company eMarketer, the Asia-Pacific region will contribute the majority of business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sales in coming years.
B2C e-commerce sales are expected to grow 23 percent in the Asia-Pacific region this year, with sales in China and Indonesia growing particularly fast at 65 percent and 71 percent, respectively, above the worldwide average of 17 percent, eMarketer said.
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