Research shows potential in Chinese Internet use 26/10/00 Cheskin Research and chinadotcom corporation have announced the release of their new large-scale research on the behaviour of Internet users in China. Marketing Manager at Cheskin Nancy Shimamoto has explained the thinking behind the survey. "With China's imminent acceptance into the World Trade Organization, a giant barrier to global trade is about to fall. The next step will be to thoroughly understand the 17 million current online users in Mainland China. The Chinese are not one homogeneous group, but differ greatly across geographic regions. Identifying and understanding these differences will be critical to success in this market." The survey has succeeded in providing insights into the attitudes, behaviours and motivations of Internet users in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The key insights were found to be that: Despite barriers, there is significant potential for e-commerce growth throughout Greater China. And in the case of mainland China, the Internet actually provides a means to complement what is lacking offline Hong Kong users prefer to shop in the real world instead of online. The preponderance of convenient, sophisticated shopping opportunities, make these users the least likely purchasers. However, the Internet does have a higher entertainment value here Place of residence is the main differentiator of online behaviour. As such, users in mainland China differ significantly from those in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and North America Overall, trust in the privacy and security of the net is relatively low in Greater China, though mainland China users are least concerned with these issues. Given this, they are more willing to trade personal information for better service or price Lack of technology ownership and access in mainland China is not a deterrent to online usage. Instead, nearly a third of these users go online from cafes, with the same proportion going online for more than 20 hours a week