Kline calls China’s online beauty sales “astounding.”

The Chinese apparently have no qualms about buying beauty products online, and with factors such as the country’s continuing growth of Internet users and the availability of more local and foreign brands, skyrocketing sales have been predicted over the next few years. According to recent research by Kline & Company, China’s online beauty sales are expected to surpass $20 billion by 2016. The report says Internet beauty sales there have been growing at a rate of nearly 200% since 2006 and are estimated to be worth nearly $8 billion at the retail sales level in 2011, making it the largest Internet beauty market in the world.

“This news is astounding,” remarked Karen Doskow, industry manager at Kline, “and to put this into perspective, Chinese online beauty sales in 2011 are nearly equal in size to the entire beauty market for France, which is the largest market for cosmetics and toiletries in Europe. Furthermore, Chinese Internet beauty sales are nearly nine times larger than the U.S. Internet beauty market.”

How did this market get so big? “The rapid growth of Internet usage over the past five years has given way to a tremendous surge in sales and availability of local and foreign cosmetic and toiletry brands,” explains Li Wang, vice president of Kline Asia. “The number of online users and buyers in China has skyrocketed. Internet users in China approached 457 million in 2011, up from 137 million in 2006. Online buyers now total some 205 million in 2011.”

Further driving the online surge are “e-malls,” such as Tiantian.com and Alibaba’s Tmall in China, that enable customers to purchase a wide range of domestic and foreign skin care and makeup brands in a convenient one-stop shop.