HANGZHOU - He Hongwei, a college graduate living in central eastern China's Zhejiang Province, five years ago fussed over landing a decent job amid red-hot competition in the world' s most crowded job market.

He then began selling novelty toys on the Internet. Five years on, he has grown into a billionaire and today is busy seeking employees to work in his own factory.

"I never thought I would make my fortune on the Internet, starting from scratch," the 35-year-old He said.

Several years ago, e-shopping was only a "shelter" for many young Chinese who turned to the Internet marketplace to make their living after failing to find decent jobs offline. Most of them earned only paper-thin profits, as e-commerce in China then was still in its infancy.

He's story, however, reflected a trend that e-business in China was no longer merely a way of survival, but has become an incubator for the newly-rich who had not expected they could make their fortunes online.

According to a report released by Alibaba.com earlier this month, China's largest Nasdaq-listed e-commerce company, some 77 million Chinese individuals and businesses have opened E-shops as of the end of this June.

Further, the number of e-shoppers has reached 142 million, or one-third of the nation's total online population.

Retail sales at e-shops more than tripled between 2007 and 2009, much faster than the 18 percent growth of retail sales in general during the same period. In the first half of this year, retail sales of e-businesses more than doubled to 211.8 billion yuan (31.6 billion U.S. dollars).

Booming sales helped entrepreneurs with e-business start-ups live decent lives, as more than 1 million e-shops at Taobao.com, China's largest online marketplace, earn profits of at least 2,000 yuan a month.

As their businesses grow larger, more shops reported profits of over 10 million yuan a year. Sheng Zhenzhong, senior analyst with the research center of Taobao.com, declined to disclose how many such shops were listed on Taobao, but said the number is steadily rising.