How to dig deep into the blue ocean of rural areas

In recent years, the consumption potential of the rural market has been released, the nominal growth rate of retail sales of rural consumer goods has exceeded that of cities and towns for three consecutive years, and the proportion of rural consumption in total consumption continues to increase. At the same time, e-commerce with the Internet as the carrier is changing the mode of consumption and circulation in rural areas. Under the tuyere of "Internet +", how to open up and expand the huge blue ocean in the countryside?

1. Rural logistics: seamless docking of e-commerce

[case]

"Litchi is sold on Wechat moments. Local lychees worth 7 or 8 yuan per jin can be sold for 15 yuan, and the highest grade lychees are distributed to East China with free delivery of 130 yuan per jin." In Baiqiao Village, Genzi Town, Gaozhou City, Guangdong Province, villager he Guobiao sold the most famous Gongyuan litchi to the whole country through village-level express delivery. "in the past, it was bought by wholesalers, but when the price was the lowest, it was down to a few cents a jin." He Guobiao told reporters that it is now sent to nearby express delivery outlets, which can be sold directly to e-commerce and settled in cash on the spot.

Maoming litchi has a long history, the famous "Feizixiao" comes from here, and Genzi Town in Gaozhou is also known as "the first town of litchi in China". "according to the development goal of 'online shops in townships and express delivery in every village', we encourage express delivery enterprises to first set up points in villages and towns to provide express services, with emphasis on towns and villages with high output of famous and high-quality local agricultural products." Chen Changyong, director of the Maoming Postal Administration, told reporters that "express delivery to the countryside" has changed the original sales method for Li farmers, and some fruit farmers have changed from middlemen to self-production and self-sale, thus getting out of the dilemma of "cheap fruit hurting farmers."

According to statistics, from January to April this year, Guangdong completed nearly 2.1 billion pieces of express delivery. based on the value of a single express delivery, Guangdong express industry carried 336 billion yuan worth of goods. Guangdong has established more than 1700 rural express service outlets, covering more than 800 townships and townships, with a coverage rate of more than 70 percent. The express industry has become the 'thermometer' and 'barometer' of local economic and social development. It is necessary to improve the depth of the 'downward' process of express delivery and actively upgrade the consumption engine. " Jiang Mingfa, director of Guangdong Postal Administration, said.

Put a few ice bags on top of the litchi, first into a foam box, and then into a blue carton marked with "cold chain delivery of fresh fruit"-this is the "secret weapon" of SF Express this year. Chen Peihua, head of Shunfeng in Maoming area, said: "We use cold chain logistics and air logistics throughout the process to shorten fruit transportation time." This year, consumers everywhere have eaten authentic fresh lychees in 24-48 hours. "

According to the State Post Bureau, by 2020, China will achieve the goal of express delivery in townships and villages. This year, Maoming has set up more than 150 convenient express collection points in villages and towns to facilitate villagers to send and deliver lychees nearby. Since late May, express delivery enterprises in Maoming have received and sent more than 50,000 pieces of litchi express, totaling more than 300 tons.

For a period of time, due to the long distribution route and low market concentration, the development of logistics express delivery in the rural market is relatively slow, which greatly restricts the development of rural e-commerce. Even if rural consumers have online shopping demand, but considering the inconvenience of express delivery, this demand is often limited.

"the consumption potential of China's rural market is huge, but the rural basic circulation facilities are quite backward, which restricts the release of rural consumption potential. Therefore, it is urgent to improve the basic circulation facilities in rural areas and change the backward circulation mode. " Zhao Ping, deputy director of the Consumer economy Research Department of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said that at present, the e-commerce of agricultural products is mostly some characteristic grain agricultural products, which are relatively simple to preserve and distribute and can be sent through ordinary express delivery and post offices. However, the e-commerce of fresh agricultural products has done less, mainly because the infrastructure of cold chain logistics in rural areas is not perfect.

A few days ago, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Internet + Circulation" Action Plan. The action plan proposes to strive to create 200 comprehensive demonstration counties with e-commerce in rural areas within 1-2 years, and the e-commerce transaction volume of the demonstration counties will grow at an average annual rate of no less than 30% on the existing basis. At present, the Ministry of Commerce, together with the Ministry of Finance, has carried out "e-commerce into rural areas" in 8 provinces and 56 counties, including Hebei, Henan and Hubei.

2. Internet + in Rural areas: industry on-line Employment Localization

[policy]

On May 7, the State Council formally issued the opinions on vigorously developing e-commerce and speeding up the cultivation of new driving forces for the economy, emphasizing the need to actively develop rural e-commerce and encouraging agricultural means of production enterprises to develop e-commerce. The "opinion" proposes to strengthen the integrated development of the Internet and agriculture and rural areas, introduce modern management concepts and methods such as industrial chain, value chain, and supply chain, study and formulate opinions to promote the development of rural e-commerce, and introduce policies and measures to support it.

Experts believe that the blue ocean of rural e-commerce and local services lies not only in farmers' shopping needs, but also in farmers' sales needs. In other words, the countryside is not only the downstream of the demand industrial chain of rural e-commerce, but also the upstream of the most primitive supply industrial chain, which is a two-way commercial supply and demand model. Compared with the rural consumption stimulated by the Internet, the Internet is also making the status of rural and urban areas in the flow of resources and products tend to be balanced through the development of e-commerce.

Since "express delivery to the countryside", fruit growers in Maoming, Guangdong Province began to "find another way". Qiu Yongqin, whose family has 20-30 mu of orchards, is also a Taobao seller. "the price that the dealer buys is more than one piece. I can sell it for five or six yuan on Taobao. Of course, I am willing to produce and sell on my own." Qiu Yongqin said that at present, the price of Guiwei litchi he sells online is 118 yuan for free delivery, and more than 800 cases have been sold so far, while his target is to reach 1500 cases per month.

According to Liang Luoyue, vice mayor of Maoming City, there are more than 4700 villagers in Baiqiao Village, Genzi Town, Gaozhou City. In previous years, the income from selling lychees was five to six million yuan, but with express delivery to the countryside to connect seamlessly with e-commerce, new sales channels gradually sprung up in rural areas. This year, the income of litchi in this village is expected to reach seven or eight million yuan.

According to the 2014 Ali Agricultural products E-commerce Research report of Ali Research Institute, as of the end of 2014, the number of sellers of agricultural products on Ali retail platform was 750000, an increase of 61% over 2013. At the same time, there are 660000 rural sellers registered in villages and towns on Ali retail platform. Correspondingly, the scale of e-commerce transactions in agricultural products has also reached a new high. In 2014, the sales of agricultural products on Ali platform totaled 48.3 billion yuan, an increase of 70 percent over 2013. From 2010 to now, the average annual growth rate of agricultural products sales of Ali platform is 112.15%.

"the Internet is urbanizing rural consumption, making industries online and localizing employment." Ali Research Institute "China Taobao Village Research report (2014)" pointed out that the development of rural e-commerce makes the entrepreneurial atmosphere and industrial radiation stronger, which has formed a strong pulling force for rural entrepreneurship and employment. At the same time, the penetration rate and transformation ability of e-commerce to the local traditional industries are also stronger.

Shen Danyang, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, revealed a few days ago that at present, there are probably more than 3000 agriculture-related websites across the country, with online retail sales of agricultural products reaching more than 100 billion yuan. Shen Danyang said that at present, the Ministry of Commerce is working with relevant departments to study and formulate guidelines on speeding up the development of rural e-commerce. The guidance will focus on four aspects: the information transformation of the traditional rural circulation network, the construction of e-commerce platform for agricultural means of production, the development of agricultural e-commerce, and the expansion of rural e-commerce services.

3. Rural consumption: the potential of the blue ocean appears

[data]

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2014, total retail sales of consumer goods in China increased by 12.0% over the previous year, an increase of 10.9% in real terms after deducting price factors. According to business statistics, retail sales of consumer goods in cities and towns totaled 22.6368 trillion yuan, up 11.8 percent, while retail sales of rural consumer goods totaled 3.6027 trillion yuan, up 12.9 percent.

Judging from the above data, although there is still a large gap between the absolute value and urban consumption, but in terms of nominal growth, rural consumption has exceeded urban consumption for three consecutive years.

"judging from the monthly data on the growth of rural consumption last year, in the month when the growth rate of rural consumption was relatively high, the growth rate of retail sales of social consumer goods showed an upward trend, and the pulling effect of rural consumption on total consumption was very obvious." Zhao Ping said that in the context of steady growth, to give full play to the "troika", especially the role of consumption in promoting economic growth, stabilizing rural consumption is actually stabilizing the growth of total consumption.

At present, the countryside has become the area with the fastest growth rate of consumption in our country. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita net income of farmers in China reached 9892 yuan in 2014, the growth rate of income exceeded that of GDP and the income of urban residents for the fifth year in a row, and the income ratio of urban and rural residents dropped to 2.92 ∶ 1 from 3.33 ∶ 1 in 2009.

Analysts believe that with the explosive growth of China's e-commerce consumer market in recent years. With the further development of e-commerce, the rural areas with low e-commerce coverage will enter the era of superimposed growth of "Internet + rural" consumption.

From January to April 2015, online retail sales nationwide increased by 40.3% compared with the same period last year, which was 29.9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods. In the previous 2014 Tmall Singles Day transaction volume, consumption in rural areas accounted for 10%, and the proportion of the total amount also continued to expand. The Taobao Village Research report of China (2014) predicts that online shopping consumption in rural areas has a huge market growth space, reaching more than 180 billion yuan in 2014, and this figure will rapidly expand to 460 billion yuan in the coming 2016.

According to the latest report of the China Internet Network Information Center, as of December 2014, the number of rural Internet users reached 178 million, accounting for 27.5% of the country's Internet users. Compared with the rural network consumption only accounts for about 10% of the national network consumption, this proportion also indicates the great potential for the development of rural e-commerce.

Zhao Ping believes that young consumers in rural areas are far more willing to accept new things and new products than cities, and that rural areas are also more willing to accept e-commerce than urban areas. In fact, the potential of rural e-commerce has been shown. In the large-scale e-commerce promotion activities in the past two years, the rural market has shown a strong ability of online shopping. Therefore, large domestic e-commerce enterprises such as Alibaba and JD.com have begun to seize the rural market in order to further tap the consumption potential of rural areas.