HANGZHOU — Zhejiang province, an e-commerce heartland in East China, saw a robust increase in online retail sales in the first eight months this year.

The online retail sales of the province in the period reached 1.38 trillion yuan (about $214.5 billion), up 15.1 percent from the same period last year, data from the provincial department of commerce showed.

Residents in the province, home to the e-commerce giant Alibaba, spent nearly 733.8 billion yuan on online shopping from January to August, up 17.5 percent year-on-year.

Clothes, shoes and bags, home decorations, as well as computers, and communication and consumer electronics ranked in the top categories in terms of online sales.

In the period, the country's online retail sales rose 19.7 percent year-on-year to reach approximately 8.12 trillion yuan, remaining a bright spot of the economy.