Internet innovation set to drive China's growth

Last year, the revenue of Suning Holdings, one of China's largest electronics retailers, was largely driven by online growth after the company embraced the Internet.

Suning, which last year partnered with Alibaba to offer in-store post-purchase services for goods bought on Tmall, China's largest open business-to-consumer platform, saw 2015 revenue reach almost 136 billion yuan ($20 billion), a rise of more than 24 percent from a year before.

Sun Weimin, Suning's vice-chairman, said the collaboration with Alibaba has resulted in a complicated process because the service is a link between an online trade platform and a vast retail system. Purchasing and sourcing based on the big data generated from each other's platforms have persuaded more suppliers to develop more consumer-based products, Sun said.

Not to be left out in this online-to-offline competition, Alibaba's rival JD.com recently announced a plan to build brick-and-mortar electronics stores in the country's rural areas.

E-commerce leader

Last year, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest e-commerce market. The market is projected to continue its solid growth to reach more than $1 trillion in 2020, according to statistics from Forrester Research, a multinational consultancy.

Nicholas Kontopoulos, global head of Fast Growth Markets and Marketing Innovation at the information provider SAP Hybris, said that to survive and thrive in today's "digitail" era, retailers will have to take advantage of technology to create something with which consumers can connect.

"Consumer expectations have been, and will continue to be, the catalyst for omni-channel strategy development. A recent SAP survey found that 86 percent of respondents agreed that with the omni-channel, consumer expectations of the organizations have risen," he said.

"By collecting and harnessing omni-channel data, retailers and businesses now have the opportunity to not only meet expectations, but to preempt and surpass them."