China’s ecommerce light shows no signs of dimming

If you’re the kind of person who battles to understand why Alibaba’s IPO — set to be the biggest in tech history — is going to be so very big, it’s probably worth your while to have a look at the current state of ecommerce in China.

According to a new report from digital marketing research group eMarketer, the Asian giant’s ecommerce market is still showing signs of serious growth, something that’s unlikely to change in the near future.

eMarketer’s research shows that retail ecommerce sales will grow more than 60% this year, with healthy gains projected through 2018.

And while the world’s attention has naturally been on Alibaba, there has also been a marked growth in the companies offering niche and specialty ecommerce services. One major shift that eMarketer expects to see in the next few years is from consumer to consumer sales to business to consumer (B2C).

In a country where, as Alibaba CEO Jack Ma puts it, ecommerce is more of a lifestyle than just another way to shop, that makes sense. More and more retailers will begin including ecommerce offerings, right down to the most niche players.

With more than three quarters of respondents to a GroupM survey saying that they prefer to shop online, anyone who fails to get onboard is starting to look doomed.

Chinese buyers are also a lot less limited in what they’re willing to buy online than people in other countries. For instance, more than three-quarters of respondents in the China Internet Network Information Center’s (CNNIC’s) “2013 China Online Shopping Market” report said they had bought apparel online.

Following closely behind are consumer packaged goods and electronics.