While e-commerce continues to grow in influence across the country, online shopping still seems a far-fetched concept in many rural areas. But industry trailblazers are determined to explore these unchartered and untapped waters.
E-commerce giant Alibaba has teamed up with the local government in Southwest China's Guizhou province, to establish 46 e-commerce service centers and, in the process, is making a huge difference in the lives of many ordinary villagers.
In a village in Guizhou, Mrs. Shu's house is packed with guests these days.
A brand new business to complement her home convenience store: a displayer installed helping everyone to buy things online.
Two months into the opening of this "Rural Taobao Service Center", an online shopping frenzy in the village is happening. The center not only lets them shop, but also helps them receive the goods.
And not just cheap goods, but things like fridges and motorcycles. And now even workers from Alibaba were taken aback by the soaring sales...the highest monthly turnaround of one service center was over 60-thousand yuan.
And this was unprecedented.
Previously, express courier companies would only transport packages to places that were convenient and, certainly, not to every village. And this was a major hindrance for rural e-commence.
So where's the way out? Local government has teamed up with Alibaba for a solution. For each package, the government subsidizes five yuan for the shipping. They hope that as more and more villagers turn to online shopping, shipping costs will dramatically reduce, and the subsidy can be discontinued. And the next step is to turn buyers into sellers.
A massive market, ready to unleash its potential.
