Germany is the largest European trading partner of the People's Republic of China. The main exports are chemical products, machinery, motor vehicles and electrical engineering. However, German companies are finding it difficult to gain access to the Chinese B2C-market. E-commerce, which has been expanded in recent years, can enable German companies to enter the Chinese custom- er market. The article presents the situation of e-commerce in China and shows relevant support offers of the platform operators, which, however, can lead to economic dependency. For German companies, it seems advantageous to deal with the principles of success of Chinese e-commerce in order to implement them in their traditional markets.
