Why is it difficult to say success for these five types of agricultural e-commerce?

There are too many views on agricultural e-commerce and rural e-commerce. But on the other hand, there are only a handful of successful rural and agricultural e-commerce projects. Maybe it is time to put aside the influence of urban e-commerce and think about rural e-commerce independently.

The investment and financing industry is a professional financing service trading platform in China. According to a summary by an analyst of the platform, the agricultural e-commerce projects it has been exposed to in recent years can be classified into five categories.

Types of agricultural e-commerce projects

One is mainly selling agricultural products. Mainly use the existing e-commerce platform to sell agricultural products. Among them, the ones that sell well are local products, mountain products, non-staple food and so on.

The second category is mainly to sell goods to rural areas. For example, selling household appliances, agricultural materials, pesticides and other production and daily necessities to rural areas, including JD.com and Taobao also have similar rural strategies.

The three categories are mainly the sale of services to rural areas. For example, providing agricultural technology services through the Internet, providing big data services to farms, and so on.

The four categories are projects engaged in rural logistics and cold chain transportation. Logistics and transportation are necessary links and elements for the development of e-commerce, so such projects also belong to the category of rural e-commerce.

The five categories are mainly the collection of rural resources. Typical such as Juhuashuashun's recent "gathering land" project, the land resources are concentrated, consumers pay the lease fees, and consumers harvest agricultural products on the land at the same time.

However, such as the above five types of rural e-commerce projects, it is difficult to say that they have achieved great success.

Agricultural e-commerce is hard to say successful.

First of all, let's look at those who sell agricultural products. Yes, relying on e-commerce channels, some agricultural products can get "sky-high" sales, and have formed their own brands. Such as those who sell pecans, Xinjiang dates, honey and so on. But there are only quantitative changes, not "qualitative" changes. What can be changed is that certain agricultural products in a certain region are no longer unsalable, which has little impact on the overall agricultural situation.

Secondly, look at those who sell goods to the countryside. Not only JD.com and Taobao, including some B2B platforms, have put forward the strategy of "going to the mountains and going to the countryside", but the rural areas are not comparable to cities in terms of consumption capacity and market capacity. The e-commerce platform aims at the rural areas, which is fruitful, but not very successful.

Then look at the provision of services to rural areas. At present, the various services provided by Internet enterprises to rural areas are still at a shallow stage, mainly information services.

Let's look at those engaged in rural logistics and cold chain. Engaged in the cold chain of fresh agricultural products, mainly aimed at urban high-end users, while the layout of express delivery enterprises in rural areas is still slow.

Finally, look at the collection of agricultural resources. Alibaba's "gathering Land" project, which has been prepared for a long time and has just been launched, has a very high requirement for capital and management ability, and it is not the average entrepreneur who can get a share.

The root cause of the difficulty in the success of agricultural e-commerce

Why can't rural e-commerce make amazing achievements? I'm afraid we still need to go back to the dual difference between the countryside and the city. "We must admit that there are dual differences between urban and rural areas in terms of e-commerce demand, e-commerce environment, e-commerce support and other factors." An observer from the financial sector believes that.

First, there is a dual difference between rural demand and urban demand type and scale. Looking at the sales data of e-commerce platform, the top several include cosmetics, clothing, electrical appliances and so on, but farmers, rural people, the demand for these goods, there is, but definitely not as strong as urban people. This determines that the installation of urban e-commerce operation ideas in rural areas may not be feasible.

Second, there is a dual difference between rural and urban e-commerce. If nothing else, we will look at the road. The road determines the cost and efficiency of logistics. Even though e-commerce is booming in China, courier companies still do not provide door-to-door delivery in many rural areas, even in core villages. This is the case with logistics, not to mention high-end ancillary systems such as cold chains.

Third, there is a dual difference between the rural production system and the industrial production system. Different from urban factory production, the production of agricultural products is cyclical and unstable, and the production efficiency is also lower than industrial production. This determines that the cost and cost of engaging in agricultural e-commerce is higher than that of urban e-commerce.

Fourth, there is a dual difference between agricultural products and industrial products. Industrial products are differentiated products, while agricultural products are homogenized products, so it is difficult to build brands.

Thus it can be seen that the reason why agricultural e-commerce has no great achievements is to use urban e-commerce ideas to operate agricultural e-commerce.

Therefore, according to an analyst in the investment and financing industry, if agricultural e-commerce can make great achievements in the future, it will need to carry out e-commerce layout and operation according to the current situation of rural areas and agriculture.

In fact, the adjustment of thinking has already begun. For example, Taoyuan Life, instead of simply selling agricultural products, uses C2B customization, in which consumers decide what farmers plant, not as dealers, but as planting decision makers, quality testers and food transporters. For example, one place, one taste, 360 rice, are trying to highlight the differences in the sale of agricultural products, to build agricultural brands, rather than just the pursuit of sales. Following this train of thought of agricultural e-commerce is Letv's life, gathering land, and so on.

When we separate agricultural e-commerce, we may be able to see a broader blue sky of agricultural e-commerce.