According to the China Online Shopping Survey 2008 released by China Internet Network Information Center, the total online shopping value in the four municipalities and 15 developed cities in China reached CNY16.2 billion in the first six months of this year.

The survey was conducted on the four Chinese municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Tianjin, and 15 developed cities of Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Dalian, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Xiamen, Jinan, Qingdao, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Xi'an. It shows that in the first half of this year, the total online shopping amount in the 19 cities reached CNY16.2 billion, with CNY8.4 billion coming from male consumers and CNY7.8 billion from female consumers. Of the total, students' online shopping amount reached CNY3.1 billion.

The report says Alibaba.com's Taobao online auction service ranked tops among all online shopping sites with an online shopping penetration rate of 81.5%, and it was followed by Dangdang.com (16.6%), Joyo Amazon (13.6%), eBay Eachnet (8.4%) and Tencent's C2C site Paipai (7.2%).

According to the report, 91% of online shoppers who have heard of Taobao have made purchases on the site, while 61.4% percent of those familiar with Joyo had shopped there.