By LI ZHIYUN and YIN WEINA

Female consumers in Zhejiang province have spent the most money buying skincare products during the first half of this year than in any other province, according to a report released by the country’s largest online shopping bazzar taobao.com earlier this month.

This is the first report of its kind released by Taobao, studying consumer shopping behavior. The study shows that Zhejiang women have spent 640 million yuan ($100 million) on skincare products during the first six months of this year, followed closely by women from Shanghai and Jiangsu province, who spent 620 million yuan and 501 million yuan.

Men also bought a lot of beauty products online, the report showed. Male consumers from Shanghai scored highest on the list, with each spending an average of 450 yuan on each transaction. Men from Beijing and Taiwan followed, with each spending an average of 444 yuan and 410 yuan on each transaction.

The top-three kinds of skin care products that have the largest trading volumes on Taobao in the first six months of this year were facial massage cream, facial care sets and men’s care products.

“The sales volume is closely related to the temperature,” said a sales executive from Taobao. “During the summer, for every one degree it increases, we can sell an additional 200,000 sunscreen products.”

Statistics from the website indicate that 54 percent of customers prefer to buy domestic cosmetic brands, 26 percent choose European and American cosmetic brands, 14 percent select Japanese and Korean brands, while 6 percent choose Taobao-created brands.

Cosmetics and perfumes are also popular among online shoppers. Female consumers in Zhejiang again topped the list as the largest number of shoppers of both cosmetics and perfumes. About 1.5 million women from Zhejiang have purchased either one of the two kinds of products from Taobao, while female consumers from Jiangsu and Shanghai ranked the second and the third.