Online retail to pass $1 trillion

By 2019, spending on Internet-based retail will exceed $1 trillion, a big leap forward from $307 billion in 2013, the latest forecast by US-based research firm Forrester Research Inc revealed on Thursday.

China, now the world's largest e-commerce market, is estimated to record $440 billion in online retail sales in 2014, and continue a compound annual growth rate of roughly 20 percent until 2019, according to a Forrester Research report e-mailed to the Global Times.

Online spending as a percentage of total consumption in the country has also ramped up at a fast pace, accounting for 9.8 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods in 2014 from a mere 2 percent in 2009, said the report.