200,000 Chinese small, midsize businesses to adopt e-commerce in 2008, up 45 percent

Industry analysts claim that the number of small and midsize businesses across China is to grow by over 45 percent, from 135,000 in 2007 to 200,000 by the end of 2008.  By 2010, this number is expected to hit 370,000. The analysts only take e-commerce activities executed by businesses that have offline stores as well. For companies that are entirely focused on e-commerce, they predict a growth in business by 4 percent over 2007.

The small businesses use the Internet as a marketing medium and have succeeded in incorporating e-commerce features including online shopping, e-payment gateways and web-surveys to improve customer relationship management, according to analysts at Access Markets International Partners China.

According to a Mastercard study, new markets such as China have brought a significant contribution to an increase in online shopping payments, due to the rising upper-middle income urban elite demographic.