Mobiles vs laptop: Which is the preferred mode of shopping?

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Buyers can’t wait to get the best deals on China's "Double-11" (November 11) shopping festival when e-commerce is likely to see a spike.

Head to a mall and try out clothes, or browse through an online store? That seems to be out of the question for millennials these days, more so in China where e-commerce is dominating the market in recent years.

The trillion yuan question is: Online shopping via mobile phones or computers?

A female consumer tries on a hat at a shopping mall. /CGTN Photo

Some say they like to use mobile apps like Taobao for buying clothes because they can scan a QR code with a phone while laptops can’t.

According to China E-Commerce Research Center, the country’s mobile retail volume reached 2.2 trillion yuan (331 billion US dollars) in the first half of 2017, accounting for over 70 percent of total online sales.

China now has nearly 500 million mobile shoppers, over one third of its population. Experts say this fever of mobile shopping will continue.

Wang Fan, Dean of Sun Yat-sen Business School, says the fever of mobile shopping will continue. /CGTN Photo

"Five years ago, only 20 percent of online sales came from mobile shopping, but now the proportion is 70 percent." Wang Fan, Dean of Sun Yat-sen Business School told CGTN. "According to some of the estimation, we’ll see the number reaching 80 percent next year."

Wang also pointed out that integration between online and offline shopping will likely be a trend in the future.

And it looks like the traditional retail industry will have to change their business model and provide more online-related services, if it wants its brick and mortar stores to survive.