The mature players have set their sights on further international expansion

According to eMarketer's recent worldwide retail and e-commerce forecast, China is poised to surpass the US to become the world's top retail market in 2019. The report said China's overall retail sales will rise 7.5 percent to $5.64 trillion, compared to US' $5.53 trillion retail sales.

Peart noted in the report that the result has been a marked rise in purchasing power and average spending per person.

EMarketer said e-commerce is a major driver of China's retail economy. E-commerce sales are estimated to increase more than 30 percent to $1.99 trillion in China this year, accounting for 35.3 percent of the country's retail sales. The US lags far behind, with only 10.9 percent of its real sales occurring online.

Peart said relative newcomers and multichannel retailers will continue to take share from Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.

"The mature players have set their sights on further international expansion. Smaller local players are finding their niche in the Chinese e-commerce market by integrating WeChat and using online-to-offline data to better target consumers."