Shoppers use online and offline resources

Today's Chinese online shoppers prefer to turn to both online channels and offline channels for product information when shopping online, according to Nielsen's recent Online Shopping Behavior Research Report.

"The newly evolving O2O (online to offline) mode makes the Internet a front desk of offline transactions," said Tao Libao, vice-president of E-commerce Solution at Nielsen Greater China.

"Consumers first go to offline retail stores to choose the products, and then move online to order, make a purchase and then get the products delivered home, which helps manufacturers and retailers quickly expand their business scope from offline to online," Tao said.

"Whether it is self-pickup or O2O mode, it's all about the convergence of both online and offline sales."

"In this regard, rather than only focusing on e-commerce, both online and offline channels will complement each other to make the retailers even more powerful drivers of consumption from both online and offline, in a more integrated way," he added.

Kela Co Ltd, China's largest online jewelry retailer, is aiming high. It plans to set up 1,000 stores around China within the next three years.

"The concept is good and the PE (private equity) is quite high in the Chinese market," said Cao Hongzhi, CEO of Kela.

Speaking of future, Cao cited Lefeng, the once top online cosmetics retailer in China that was as heatedly pursued by investors as Kela, which was recently acquired by the New York Exchange listed online discount retailer Vipshop and that is an option acceptable to Cao

"I do not mind how the company is operated," he said. "Uppermost in my mind is to bring the most to the shareholders."