The bar chart provides China’s domestic online retail consumption over the past four years. In 2010, goods amounting to 500 billion Yuan were sold online in China, and the figure reached 800 billion Yuan in 2011. In the last year, over 1800 billion Yuan worth of commodities were purchased through the Internet.

These figures indicate that people in China are more willing to buy things via the Internet. First, the price of a certain product sold online is usually cheaper, even much cheaper than that sold in stores. Second, with the help of online transaction platforms, comparing similar products is much easier than doing so in supermarkets. Finally, when you decide to buy something online, you can pay for it by credit card rather than by cash, so you don’t have to bring a large volume of cash while shopping in a nearby store.

The boom of the online retail industry poses a threat to traditional brick-and-mortar retail businesses. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail corporation, has closed several of its local markets in some Chinese cities. It seems that companies like Wal-Mart need to change their business model to curb the decline of consumers.