The explosive growth of electronic shopping in China has led to the country’s emergence as one of the world’s busiest online shopping markets, both in terms of overall sales volumes and in terms of the frequency with which consumers shop online, Ms. Yu said.

In China, 58 percent of respondents in the PwC report said they shopped online at least once a week, for example. That percentage was by far the highest of any of the countries covered in the PwC survey. By comparison, only 42 percent of U.S. respondents, 41 percent of those in Britain, and 29 percent of German respondents said they shopped online at least once a week. The percentage was lowest in France, where only 13 percent said they made online purchases once or more a week.

Chinese consumers are also significantly more likely than their counterparts in other parts of the world to use smartphones or tablets, rather than PCs, to make online purchases. More than one third of Chinese online shoppers used such devices, about double the global average, the PwC report found.

The quest for lower prices has been a main driver of online shopping around the world in recent years, especially in the half-decade since the global financial crisis, when consumers in many parts of the world became more eager to save money, Ms. Yu said.

In China, however, the growth of online shopping has been given several extra kicks.

The economy has continued to grow rapidly; wages have risen; and the country’s online population has ballooned along with better communications networks and the easy availability of online devices.