A Taobao.com billboard at an auto show in Beijing. The Hangzhou-based website has become the biggest online trading platform in China as well as the most important platform for thousands of online entrepreneurs.
More than 2.2 million Chinese are working for the country's rapidly expanding electronic commerce industry as of June, the People's Daily reported Sunday.
The e-commerce sector also helped to create more than 16 million jobs in other industrial sectors, the newspaper quoted statistics released by the China Enterprise Evaluation Association and the China Gold & Silver Trade Center.
China's online commerce has experienced rapid growth in recent years, with its total revenue expanding from 25.8 billion yuan($4.2 billion) in 2006 to 780 billion in 2011
In 2012, China's e-commerce industry was worth 8.1 trillion yuan, with online shopping contributing 1.3 trillion yuan, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce.
As of 2012, China had about 200,000 e-commerce service enterprises, according to official statistics.