Taobao boosts rural e-commerce
actions nationwide, according to a joint study by Southwest University of Finance and Economics and Ali Research, an Alibaba think tank.
Apart from traditional services, Alibaba is also extending into new tech such as big data to empower villagers to identify the right produce to sell to customers.
Wang Xiaoer’s march into online sales stemmed from a request by his father-in-law, a farmer in Shandong province whose apples were not selling too well in 2012. So, Wang opened an online store on Taobao and expanded the product portfolio from just apples to include pears, cherries, avocados and mangoes.
But the real secret to the business was leveraging big data analysis provided by Alibaba, which helps the vendor analyze customer preferences and decide which fruit sells better and in which time period.
Wang said: “Without big data, we used to be clueless in selling. Now we don’t worry about the potential waste.”
Wang quit his job as a software developer last year to focus on the fruit business.
More than 10,000 individual farms are now tied up with Wang in the hope that e-commerce and precise data analysis could boost sales and help them sell their local specialties globally.
Also turning to high-tech are villagers in Youxi county, Fujian province, who have harnessed live-streaming and the Taobao platform to market kumquats. At the end of November, the county had 132 e-commerce firms employing 2,360 people.
Taobao also promoted the local produce by inviting a Michelin star Italian chef and a Chinese internet celebrity to visit the area on a tour and they put on a cooking demonstration which was streamed live.
“People are normally concerned about food safety when they purchase food online. We want to show them the source of the produce,” said Wang Xiuli, a Rural Taobao staff member overseeing the project.