Increasing online shopping in rural areas than the high proportion of cities

Text / Huang Bimei Zhang Wenting

Talking about rural slogans, in the people's minds, most of the wall that occupies the bungalows are slogans of policy propaganda such as "family planning is the basic national policy", "wanting to become rich and having fewer children and more trees".

Today, e-commerce bigwigs have entered the village! Wherever you go, but also brush the wall marks:

"To live well, quickly Taobao" "fellow see fellow, shopping to Dangdang" "fortune to get rich by labor, thrifty family rely Jingdong" ......

Recently, the official microblogging Jingdong Mall made a message: "Both to go abroad, but also to the countryside; Tall up into the New York Times Square, grounded gas can be painted over the rural red brick." Jingdong said it has been In the country landed more than 8,000 banners brush ads.

July 14 -20, Alibaba Department of Taobao, gather together cost-effective, Tmall Electric City in more than 2,600 counties to provide consumers with large appliances "nationwide shipping, home delivery," so that consumers in the county experience a Second-tier cities on the same online shopping services and products, the implementation of sinking strategy.

Rural Blue Internet retail

How tall business giants are targeting the countryside?

As one background, one data released by the National Bureau of Statistics can serve as a backdrop: in 2013, the per capita net income of rural residents increased by 12.4% over the previous year, while the per capita disposable income of urban residents increased by 9.7%. Alibaba data released more direct: In 2013, China's online shopping spending growth, the county market higher than the urban market by 13.6 percentage points.

Rural people's purse drums, strong spending power. However, at present in most parts of China's counties, the construction of economic business lags behind with little shopping malls and bustling central commercial areas. The number of well-known brands set up direct sales stores in small towns is scarce. Even, "Nutrition Line" "Kang Shuai Fu" "阿里达斯斯" and other places in the city have no place to cottage products, also popular in the village small supermarket.

The online retail market has made up for the relatively backward real estate retail deficiencies. With the convenience and price advantage of online shopping, the quality of consumers in small towns and rural residents can be improved. Well-known brands in the county popular, and cottage products smaller and smaller living space.

Statistics show that in 44 brands extracted from Lynx, there are 32 brands in the county average annual turnover is higher than the first and second tier cities. Take red dragonfly as an example. For every 100 yuan of consumption, 42 yuan comes from county users, 31 yuan from first- and second-tier cities, and the remaining 27 yuan comes from overseas, Hong Kong, Maucao, and third- and fourth-tier cities.

Online retail in county area plays an important role in stimulating domestic demand. McKinsey released a report shows that online retail sales per 100 yuan, only 43 yuan is an alternative to consumption, while the other 57 yuan is stimulating the new consumer spending, if there is no online retail, it will not produce 57 yuan consumption.

A rural area, two e-commerce play style

Right now, Taobao and Jingdong out to the third-sixth-tier cities out of "caravan", the content of the event looks similar: nothing more than code scanning online shopping, shop billboards, users interact with the town as the base radiation in rural areas. Alibaba.com and Jingdong, the two largest electricity providers in China, invariably started channel subsidence strategy.

However, the difference between the two business models has brought about no small difference. Ali's Lynx and Taobao provide a platform for all sellers are from third parties, and Jingdong's business focus is self-oriented.

Ali platform in the shop to open a low threshold, many sellers from the county and rural areas. To become a supplier of Jingdong, higher requirements for the size and brand of the enterprise, rural sellers are often "out of reach." Ali's logistics rely on third parties, postal coverage in rural areas can be done in the rural areas Taobao than Jingdong, Dangdang and other self-employed e-commerce, has an absolute advantage.

Jingdong channels sink to open up cities outside the first and second tier consumers. Jing Hao Mall CEO Shen Hao Yu sink this year, the channel summing up, so that residents of small towns know Jingdong is doing. Ali, on the other hand, has both channels of sellers and buyers sinking.

The third-party e-commerce platform, represented by Taobao, provides farmers with low-cost Internet entrepreneurship. Jia Peixiao of Bayou Village, Boxing County, Shandong Province, took this ride. "Wan Tau Tsuen handmade straw hat has a long history, a population of less than 5,000 people, but there are more than 500 Taobao shop, annual sales of more than a million have more than a dozen," Jia Peixiao laments, "the local villagers from Producers become sellers, and led to the development of a large number of peripheral industries, it can be said that everyone in Wan Tau Village is sharing the dividends brought by the development of e-commerce. "

According to the statistics of Ali Research Institute, as of November 30, 2013, the number of online shops registered in rural areas (including counties) operated normally by Taobao and Lynx was 2.029 million, an increase of 24.9% over the end of 2012, Among them, the registered place was 1.05 million at the township level, an increase of 76.3% over the end of 2012, with a net increase of 460,000 rural shop outlets. Products such as agricultural products, furniture and specialty products are entering the city through sellers on Alibaba platform.

The gathering and development of "Taobao Village" featured industries has a strong radiation effect on the surrounding areas. It not only expands the industrial chain but also absorbs the large population to make "Taobao Village" expand from "village" to "town."

Jingdong adhere to self-oriented, in product flow, logistics and services, more controllable in the city. However, this "magic weapon" went to rural areas because of the high cost and the low return, so it was very hard to succeed. And proprietary model of external enterprises, especially grassroots entrepreneurs driving force, far less than the third-party platform.

E-commerce sinking lies in the logistics

For online shopping, logistics bottlenecks in rural areas is always an unavoidable problem. In rural areas, especially in economically underdeveloped areas, there are few faraway parts, high logistics and operation costs, and low input-output ratio. Courier companies are often reluctant to cultivate the rural market.

Especially for self-built logistics and distribution platform for self-employed, rural logistics constraints more pronounced. Wang Xiao, who resides in Beijing, buys daily items at No.1 store and even serves rice. Thinking of making it easier for parents who live in Beipiao, Liaoning Province, to plan to get Rice to shop at No.1 afterwards, she found that "the current region does not sell" as soon as she chooses "Liaoning Beipiao." Even in the shopping on Taobao sent home, parents have to go to the town's post office to take, to enjoy the delivery of Beijing express delivery service.

Currently, only China Post owns a non-blind logistics network covering rural areas, campuses and remote and extremely cold areas in China. As for the leading express delivery companies in SF Express, Shen Tong, Zhongtong and Yun Da, service coverage is still quite large. Logistics in rural areas, the speed of response, convenience, options are far less than the city.

"E-commerce sink, the most critical or sinking logistics channels." Ali Institute senior expert Chen Liang said.

Open up the sinking of logistics channels, Ali, mainly through the integration of its logistics information network rookie network enterprise resources. In June this year, China Post and Alibaba reached an agreement on cooperation. China Post opened up its nationwide network of more than 100,000 service outlets to rookie networks. Private express delivery companies can leverage the postal outlets to develop rural express delivery markets. The Ali Group shares day by day, now able to achieve the country 2600 large household appliances "sales to the village, delivery to the door, service to households."

Jingdong proud to build self-built logistics system for many years, self-built logistics is still the magic weapon of its sinking. Its original "Pioneer Station" model, to encourage employees to start their own businesses to set up delivery stations. At present, 145 employees have returned home to expand their business after intensive training. Employees in a district to bear the distribution and sales work, but also responsible for pick-up, renewal, cash on delivery. Pioneer station into the Jingdong self-built logistics system.

However, the speed of self-built logistics coverage is far less than that of third-party logistics. From the Jingdong lasted six months, large-scale deployment of the "Jingdong Caravan" route mainly in the prefecture-level cities, its consumers are far from large-scale expansion to the village level.

"With the development of the Internet and logistics infrastructure in the county, rural areas are becoming another blue ocean for the development of online retailing," said Chen Liang.