(Yicai Global) Nov. 19 -- Food-related disputes accounted for 46 percent of all online shopping lawsuits filed in the last three and a half years, according to a new report.

Chinese courts dealt with 49,000 contract disputes between Jan. 1, 2017 and June 30 this year, involving an average value of CNY49,100 (USD7,463), according to a report released by the China Justice Big Data Research Institute today. Most of the complainants were under 40 years old, and the majority of the cases concerned amounts under CNY10,000 (USD1,517).

Some 15,600 cases were filed in the last year, a 30 percent jump year on year, as China’s e-retail market goes from strength to strength, it said. Last year alone, Chinese shoppers spent CNY10.63 trillion (USD1.61 trillion) buying goods online.

Disagreements concerning digital and electrical devices accounted for 17.2 percent of the lawsuits, 11.4 percent involved goods bought from overseas e-commerce platforms, and less than 10 percent had to do with medicine and health supplements, furniture, clothing, shoes, bags and cosmetics, the report said.

There were 904 million internet users in China as of March, almost 80 percent of whom shopped online, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Center.

Editor: Kim Taylor