Online retailers hope to challenge industry trend

"The items on our website are not suitable as business gifts," said Lang Xueyue, vice-president of Shangpin.com, a members-only luxury online retailer.

Officials prefer popular styles as gifts, but online retailers supply very distinctive luxury items, Lang said.

Business gifts accounted for a very small proportion of the website's sales, she said.

Online retailers still can enjoy even triple-digit growth, Lang said.

Statistics from the China e-Business Research Center show that in the first half of 2012, China's online luxury market was worth 13.5 billion yuan ($2.17 billion), up 58 percent year-on-year.

Some analysts predict that China's online luxury market will keep growing dramatically.

The China e-Business Research Center forecast that online luxury sales could be worth as much as 23.76 billion yuan by the end of 2013.

The figure may reach 37.24 billion yuan by 2015, according to iResearch Consulting Group, an organization focusing on research in China's Internet industry.

Online retailers also have an advantage in not facing the geographical restrictions that their brick-and-mortar counterparts do.

"Shangpin.com covers 400 cities in China now, even some very small cities I had never heard of before," said Lang.

Some residents of small cities have the consumption power, but luxury brands cannot afford to open stores there.

"We gather consumers from small cities online," Lang said.

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