During Tuesday’s 11.11 (Singles’ Day) Shopping Festival, Alibaba set new online retail records: 278.5 million orders with a GMV exceeding RMB 57 billion ($9.3 billion) (43% of which came from mobile devices). This comes on the heels of the world’s biggest IPO earlier this year, in which Alibaba raised $25 billion. Alibaba’s smaller rival JD.com, which raised $1.7 billion in its own IPO, received more than 14 million orders (40% of which came from mobile) on Singles’ Day 2014, an increase of more than 120% over November 11, 2013. Powered by the cash that their IPOs generated and growing demand among Chinese consumers, Forrester forecasts that China will become first $1 trillion online retail market by 2019.

Several factors contribute to this tremendous growth, including:

  • The rise of mobile shopping
  • eCommerce’s increasing wallet share and category expansion
  • Improving logistics
  • Penetration into lower-tier cities

Increasing disposable income and urbanization are also powering the continuing growth of China’s online retail market. The focus has now shifted toward the fulfillment and delivery of the roughly 300 million orders placed yesterday placed yesterday to customers; product delivery will largely be via truck. To serve a market of this scale, eCommerce companies doing business in China must strengthen their logistics so that they can maintain the overall customer experience of online retail

For more on China online retail market, download the forecast Forrester Research Online Retail Forecast, 2014 To 2019 (Asia Pacific).