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By silicon.com, 17 March 2003 09:09

COMMENT This Sunday the UK e-tail sector was presented with one of the best ever opportunities to grow their businesses. They were given the chance to start registering dot-cn domain names - the country specific suffix for China. For the past few years e-tailers have been struggling to emerge from the dot-com bloodshed. Many have diversified or changed their core offering in an attempt to appeal to wider or new audiences. Many others have folded already as business models which looked great on paper failed to live up to their billing online. Now imagine if at any point somebody had come along and offered these ailing businesses millions of untapped potential customers. China currently has 56.6 million citizens online - a figure which represents just five per cent of the total population. With a web-boom in full bloom this figure will rise dramatically. The China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) predicts the number of Chinese internet users will jump 46 per cent to 86.3 million people by the end of the year. China's ecommerce market, currently valued at $500m per year, is projected to expand to $23bn within three years. The major players in the e-tail arena will be chomping at the bit to get involved and there is no reason why smaller sites selling to the UK and Europe shouldn't move into these new waters. 'If only we could crack China' may have become a cliché in some quarters but for many the possibilities are endless - or at least as 'endless' as a population in excess of one billion will allow. Of course, the far-reaching dot-com domain has been powerful in the past but with any nascent market, such as China, there is always greater association with a country specific domain. Chinese shoppers, new to the web and new to the idea of ecommerce are expected to feel greater affinity with dot-cn brands - even if they are registered overseas. The domains went on sale yesterday, 16 March. And the advice is to get in early. NeuStar, working with the Chinese authorities to administer the roll out of domains, is expecting massive demand. For more information on how you can register a Chinese domain name, visit www.getmy.cn.