Suning’s E-commerce Website Launches Book Channel

Chinese electronics and home appliances retailer Suning has released its performance report for the third quarter of 2011, stating that from January to September 2011, the company’s e-commerce business grew rapidly and realized sales of CNY4.079 billion.

According to the report, Suning’s total operating revenue in the first nine months of 2011 was CNY67.625 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24.54% and an increase of 52.89% compared with the first half of 2011. Its net profit was CNY3.422 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21.03%.

In the first half of 2011, the revenue from the company’s e-commerce business accounted for 5.8% of the total revenue of Suning, and the ratio increased by 6% by the end of September.

As the e-commerce business has become a new growth point for Suning, the company announced that its Internet retail platform has launched a new book sector, which currently provides 600,000 books to users in China. This service puts it in direct competition with Dangdang.com and Amazon China.

Sun Weimin, deputy chairman of Suning, told local media that Suning’s e-commerce business has expanded from home appliances to household supplies. As an Internet retail platform, its e-commerce website now is aimed at independent visits of three million to five million on a daily basis and it reportedly needs two million stock keeping units to support the operation of the website. However, it only has 200,000 to 300,000 stock keeping units, so the company plans to extend its e-commerce portfolio to other products, including books, commodities, and apparel.