In China, where online purchases account for one out of every 20 retail sales - and is expected to quadruple in 2015 - how can online vendors maintain an edge?

Offer exclusive products and good bargains, says one of the United Kingdom's most respected Internet entrepreneurs.

"Most of the really big online shopping companies today have stuff that either you can only find on that site or it is priced exclusively," Brent Hoberman, 42, founder and executive chairman of mydeco.com, the UK's leading interior design website, said in an interview during a recent Beijing trade mission for the UK Creative Industries.

"Some of the new, successful models are those that hide prices away from Google - funnily enough - or away from the search engines," he said, citing companies like the United States-based Groupon.

In China's rapidly growing market - online shopping revenue in the second quarter of this year reached 179.2 billion yuan, up 76.7 percent over the same quarter in 2010 - logistics are a particular challenge.

Yu Yu, executive chairwoman of Dangdang.com, the country's largest Internet bookseller, said the supply chain weakness is the biggest bottleneck to e-commerce in China.

The distribution capacity of typical Chinese manufacturers is restricted to a very small region, so delivering to distribution centers throughout the country is "a real challenge for suppliers", she told the BBC.

In this light, vendors who make delivery, as well as payments, "simple and convenient" will be "big winners here", Hoberman said.

Hoberman has been described by the British press as the go-to-guy "if you had to pick one person to give advice on the world of technology and the future of digital business".

The Briton made his name in the online consumer industry by co-founding lastminute.com in 1998. The travel and retail site, which made its niche by offering late holiday deals, went public two years later. It managed to survive the burst of the dotcom bubble and was sold for 577 million pounds ($1.1 billion) in 2005.

Hoberman, who studied French and German literature at Oxford University, said he came up with lastminute.com after contemplating what he would want online.

"I literally thought, 'Well, everything at the last minute'. So whether that was going away, going out, or staying in," he told the BBC. "It enabled us to go after people who want to be spontaneous, romantic or adventurous."

In 2008 he launched mydeco.com, which aggregates UK online furniture retailers and offers a 3D tool that allows shoppers to put together their ideal rooms virtually. The site was a by-product of the difficulties Hoberman and his wife experienced while decorating their home in London.

"We were doing up the house for ages and I was finding it really hard to visualize things. My wife would say, 'Shall we get this chair or that one?' And I'd be like, 'I have absolutely no clue, no idea what you are talking about,'" he told The Sunday Times.

"Then I went online, thinking the net must help me, but I was having to spend a lot of time finding sites. There was no central place that aggregated everything. I thought there really is an opportunity here. Not even Google can tell me where I can buy a red leather sofa."

In the past year, China has played a bigger part in his business ventures. Made.com, a homeware retailer that Mydeco and partners set up last year also sources furniture here.

"There is an opportunity to build a really good furniture brand in China," said the UK Business Ambassador. "If made.com could actually turn it around and build a strong consumer brand, rather than just sourcing, that would be exciting."

Hoberman is also looking forward to seeing the Chinese create something groundbreaking for the global online shopping industry.

"What is exciting is when we see the innovation: China trying out new experimental business models and then taking them to the rest of the world."

You can contact the writer at

tiffany@chinadaily.com.cn