China’s economy is expanding at its slowest pace in almost three decades, but online shopping is still growing at the country’s biggest e-commerce companies, driven by customers in smaller cities and a general shift to more buying on the internet, official and third-party data show.
The data—collected from e-commerce sites Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo as well as government statistical releases—show online shopping is bucking a weakening in China’s economic output and retail sales that was particularly marked in the last quarter of 2018.
