China's online shopping websites will exercise more prudence if they launch a price war or sales promotions this year as stiff competition has eaten into their profits, an industry report said on Tuesday.

The websites raised prices by 7.5 percent on average in October but then had to cut prices by more than 10 percent in November and December as they carried out sales promotions, said the report by Etao, the search site of Alibaba Group.

The report said online shopping sites will likely shift their strategy and concentrate on service and quality.

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