Wal-Mart Seeks Growth In China's Ecommerce Market

Yihaodian, majority owned by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is moving to expand its online retail operations in China. As part of its expansion moves, the online retailer increased the number of products it sells on its website, expanded its supply chain, and improved the usability of its mobile site to increase sales. Wal-Mart looks at online retail as a means of achieving growth in the country, something that it has so far failed to achieve with its brick-and-mortar business in China. Yihaodian, however, needs to compete with Alibaba, which accounted for more than half of the country’s online business-to-consumer market as of the second quarter in 2014.