Related News
Online sites expand in rural areas
Print Edition
CHINA’S leading e-commerce giants have stepped up expansion of online retail business in rural areas in hopes of tapping the new territory to offset a saturated urban market.
JD.com Inc, a Nasdaq-listed firm, announced they would set up a county-level operating center in Guangdong Province.
The move followed the e-commerce giant’s decision to open a physical shop in a small county in north China’s Hebei Province in November to help farmers purchase home appliances via its online shopping store.
Plagued by poor transport and less purchasing power, rural buyers remained mostly untouched by the wave of online shopping that swept across China in recent years.
However, the situation is changing as the burgeoning market in villages has shown great potential and intrigued the country’s major e-commerce businesses.
A report published by a research center under Alibaba Group, China’s largest commerce company, forecast the value of the rural online sales market will grow to 180 billion yuan (US$29 billion) this year and 460 billion yuan in 2016.
Rural buyers on taobao.com, Alibaba’s online sales website, made up nearly 10 percent of total sales of the site in the first quarter of this year, up from a proportion slightly higher than 7 percent two years ago.
E-commerce giants such as Alibaba and Suning are also striving to grab a lion’s share of the market, and the former has gained one step ahead.
Alibaba has established branches in three counties and planned to invest 10 billion yuan in three to five years to spread its rural operating centers in a third of China’s total counties and a sixth of rural areas.
An anonymous executive from Alibaba said the group will work hard to develop rural e-commerce to allow farmers to buy urban merchandise easily and transport farm produce to the city faster.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
