Development Status of the C2C E-commerce Express in China: Case Study on Taobao

Abstract

Abstract. Taobao is the biggest platform for C2C e-commerce in China. Based on the data of expresses from taobao.com, this paper conducts a statistical analysis about the C2C express in China under 31 provinces, three economic zones and eight economic regions, respectively. C2C expresses related with each area are classified into outbound expresses and inbound expresses according to their recipient addresses and sender addresses. The development of C2C expresses in China is unbalanced and the difference of outbound expresses between areas is much higher than the inbound expresses. Concepts of express surplus and express deficit are put forward based on the definition of trade surplus and trade deficit. Statistical results show only 4 provinces' C2C expresses are surplus, the rest are all deficit. We found that 84.2% of C2C expresses in China are distributed across different provinces. Delivery distances of C2C expresses across different provinces are calculated as well. Delivery distance for most C2C trans-provincial expresses is bigger than 500km and less than 1500 km.