Retailers expanding online presence

Growing competition from online e-commerce firms is prompting China's top brick-and-mortar retailers to expand their online presence rapidly, even as smaller format retailers continued to gain strength, notwithstanding their digital challenges and rising costs, a new survey said.

According to the 2017 China top 100 chain stores survey released by the China Chain Store& Franchise Association, integration of brick-and-mortar stores and online platforms was the most outstanding feature of the retail industry in 2017.

In 2017, the country's top 100 retail chains attained revenue of 2.2 trillion yuan ($346.7 billion), up 8 percent year-on year. The top 100 retail chains had more than 109,800 stores, an annual growth of 9.1 percent. Convenience stores outpaced other retail formats in terms of growth rate, up 16.9 percent in sales and 18.1 percent in the number of stores.