A hit on e-commerce platforms, the small bento-box dish, which costs no more than 50 yuan (7.4 US dollars), became extremely popular among young Chinese white-collar workers.

The small bento-box instant hotpot is composed of an inner layer holding half-cooked vegetables and meat and an outer layer with heating materials at the bottom, which can release heat after combining with cold water. A mini hotpot can be prepared within 10 minutes.

A total of 4.53 million packages were sold during last year’s Single’s Day online shopping carnival, nearly triple compared with the same period in 2017. Some even sold out at local convenience stores.

However, the instant hotpot products might be delicious and convenient, but they been proven unsafe.

A recent test on 20 different such products revealed that inflammable gas can be released during the heating process and the plastic outer or inner layers can distorted because of the heat.

Shanghai Consumer Council, the test conductor, called for the setting of national and industry standards, suggesting careful use of the hotpot in open areas and sorted disposal of the self-heating materials.

Just like the instant hotpot, online best-selling products often go viral on social networks by precisely satisfying the needs of young customers, said Lao Guoling, head of the research center for e-commerce with Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

According to the China Consumers Association, most customer concerns last year were internet-related, including the quality of online goods, safety of online ride-hailing, mobile payment and personal information protection.

Chinese online shoppers and regulatory authorities are facing bigger challenges as the virtual marketplace booms with popular products emerging one after another, said Lao, noting that such products and services might not be covered by existing industry standard constraints.

China’s first e-commerce law took effect on Jan. 1. It bans vendors from unscrupulous practices like deleting shopper reviews, and cancelling orders.

Wang Yunxia, instructor of Zhejiang Gongshang University, said the law could help promote the healthy development of e-commerce and better protect the rights of online consumers.

Starting in 1999, China’s e-commerce market has been expanding at break-neck pace, with emerging players, even individuals, joining industry giants like Alibaba and JD in mining the country’s consumption potential.

E-commerce platforms has also played their part in protecting consumer rights.

In 2018, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba applied new technologies such as semantic and emotional analysis of online comments, panoramic view of online stores and live streaming monitoring system to discover problematic products and sellers.

Alibaba’s online shopping platform Tmall rolled out a slew of return and refund policies concerning trending products. For example, consumers are entitled to claim refunds for cosmetics and diapers that cause allergic reactions, and alcohol that is damaged during transportation.

Alibaba said it aided police in catching 1,953 suspects involved in counterfeiting related crimes in 2018. The cases solved were worth about 7.9 billion yuan (1.17 billion US dollars).

China’s authorities also have improved their measures of consumer protection online. The “12315” online consumer protecting platforms now can be reached for help through personal computers and several mobile applications or mini-applications 24 hours a day.

Statistics show that these online platforms were visited nearly 39 million times in 2018.

Wang Qian said she would still buy instant hotpot, but be more cautious and pay more attention to information released by local authorities on online products.

The partnership enables potentially 110,000 British retailers to tap into the growing volume and buying power of Chinese visitors, who represent an increasingly important source of customers, the pair said in a joint statement on Thursday.

Merchants don’t need to replace their existing point-of-sale system to include Alipay as a payment method. They are also likely to benefit from the more than 600 million Chinese Alipay users who search for store openings and check out discounts using the app.

“Our new agreement with Alipay gives retailers a vital tool to help them seize the revenue opportunity posed by the growth of Chinese visitors to the UK,” said Rob Cameron, chief executive officer and global head of payment acceptance at Barclaycard.

“At the same time, Alipay users will benefit from a more convenient and familiar in-store payments process－enhancing their overall shopping experience.”

VisitBritain, UK’s national tourism agency, is expecting 483,000 visits from China in 2019, up 43 percent on 2017, with Chinese visitors expected to spend more than£1 billion ($1.33 billion) this year, up 50 percent.

And this is on top of UK’s 393,000 Chinese residents and 95,000 Chinese students, according to statistics from the UK Council for International Student Affairs, who constitute a sizable population that are already comfortable with the payment app.

This marks another step toward offering Chinese tourists a seamless travel and payment experience, said Roland Palmer, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Alipay.

Barclaycard, the global payment arm of Barclays Bank Plc, processes nearly half of the UK’s credit and debit card transactions. The current collaboration is based on a pilot program that the pair kicked off two years ago for early adopters to experience Alipay payment.

According to a survey conducted by Nielsen last year, 93 percent of Chinese tourists said they would likely spend more in a store that accepted mobile payments. In addition, among the merchants surveyed that had adopted Alipay, nearly 60 percent said that they had clearly seen growth in both foot traffic and revenue.

“China has embraced mobile payments faster than any other country and will continue to lead the global charge in this regard,” said Vishal Bali, managing director of Nielsen China.

“Mobile payment is on the rise globally, and will continue to support greater connectivity and efficiency across the commercial ecosystem.”

Alipay has partnered with 250 financial institutions globally to date. Since 2015 it has formed nine strategic partnerships with local partners outside the Chinese mainland, extending its own technologies and experience to incubate local payment solutions and allow for settlement using local currencies.

This modern-day solution at the venerable compound comes thanks to an agreement signed on Friday by the museum and Huawei Co, the telecommunication giant, to build a “smart network” using 5G technology, the fifth generation of mobile network communications.

Under the agreement, 5G Wi-Fi signals will cover the 720,000-square-meter compound, China’s imperial palace from 1420 to 1911 and also known as the Forbidden City, and the branch museum of the institution under construction in northwestern Beijing.

But visitor comfort is not the only benefit of a 5G smart network.

Huawei will also provide the museum with cutting-edge technologies for the internet of things－devices or objects linked in a network－cloud computing and artificial intelligence to facilitate such functions as management, security and preservation of cultural relics.

“It’s essential to always stay close to the latest technology to better serve the public,” said Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum.

Shan said there is still much room for improvement in the handling of a huge number of cultural relics, such as when the priceless painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival is exhibited again next year.

The Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) landscape painting is considered the best-known ancient Chinese work of art. When it was last exhibited in 2015, visitors stood in long lines until 3 am to get a glimpse. The museum ended up preparing instant noodles to serve the hungry visitors.

“I don’t want that scenario to recur,” Shan said. “Our operation can be done in a more scientific way.”

The new system will make use of the more than 3,000 closed-circuit television cameras that are installed all over the Palace Museum. Shan said facial-recognition technology will determine which areas are most popular with frequent visitors in order to analyze their preferences.

“We can later, accordingly, provide useful information on our exhibitions,” he said.

The CCTV cameras also are used to safeguard the museum’s precious relics. More than 1.86 million of them are housed at the museum, which logged 17.5 million visits from the public in 2018, topping all museums worldwide.

“How can we make sure no single visitor who might have evil ideas threatens these treasures?” Shan said. “After adopting the internet of things, we can instantly detect any motion involving the artifacts to prevent such threats.”

Such a networked system also will be used to facilitate management of inventory and closely supervise transportation and exhibition of cultural relics.

New technologies can assist the museum staff in other ways, too, said Wang Tao, a member of Huawei’s board of directors.

The company will use algorithms to more efficiently draft tailored plans for restoring cultural relics after information on similar pieces and files on each collection are included in a database.

“We can thus combine old craftsmen’s experience and artificial intelligence,” Wang said.

The 5G network also will be used to improve remote consultation through webcams, which will facilitate conversations with overseas scholars to jointly find the best answers for restoration and preservation issues, he said.