The profit of agriculture-related e-commerce is not optimistic and still needs to be improved in the future.

The 2014-2015 China Agricultural products E-commerce Development report points out that at present, only about 1% of agriculture-related transactions in China can make a profit.

A few days ago, the China Food (Agricultural products) E-commerce High-level Seminar released the "2014-2015 China Agricultural products E-commerce Development report". Hong Tao, dean of China Food (Agricultural products) Safety Electronic Commerce Research Institute and a professor at Beijing Industrial and Commercial University, said that although there are nearly 4000 agriculture-related transactions in China, only about 1 per cent of e-commerce businesses are profitable because of disorderly competition in the market and high logistics costs. The seminar is co-sponsored by China Food Industry Integrity Alliance and China Food (Agricultural products) Electronic Commerce Research Institute, and hosted by Longbao Origin Mall.

The report points out that in 2014, the number of agriculture-related e-commerce enterprises in China reached 31000, of which 4000 were agriculture-related transaction e-commerce, forming a market pattern of "two supermarkets, multi-strong, and minority", of which the "two supermarkets" composed of Ali and JD.com occupied the main share. in recent years, some emerging agricultural products e-commerce has also formed its own characteristic development model after receiving capital injection. According to statistics, the sales of agricultural products on Ali platform increased from 3.7 billion yuan in 2010 to more than 80 billion yuan in 2014, with an average annual growth rate of 112.15%. In terms of fresh e-commerce on Taobao, the transaction volume of fresh e-commerce nationwide reached 13 billion yuan in 2013, an increase of 221% over the same period last year and is expected to reach 26 billion yuan in 2014.

As for the problems existing in the e-commerce of agricultural products in China, Hong Tao believes that the homogenization of the construction of e-commerce websites is serious, which leads to disorderly competition, loss-making operation, and even the coexistence of building and closing stations. According to the report, at present, only 1% of domestic agriculture-related transaction e-commerce can make a profit, 7% have huge losses, 88% have a slight loss, and 4% are flat.

Zhang Guo, director of the Market Circulation Department of the Market and Economic Information Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said: "at present, many people do not have a full understanding of e-commerce for agricultural products. If every peasant household is engaged in e-commerce, it will result in running out of goods on the first day and running out of goods on the second day, which is also a waste of resources. " He suggested that we should develop agricultural products e-commerce intensively, establish brand awareness, and explore the profit model of agricultural products e-commerce.

"the mode of rural e-commerce cannot be considered in terms of urban e-commerce mode. The consumption habits and ways of thinking of rural and urban areas are different." Huang Hai, deputy director of the academic Committee of the China International Economic Center, believes that taking the city village supermarket in Beijing as an example, the products they sell are different from those of the city supermarket, but the business is just as good. At present, the development of rural e-commerce should highlight personalization and differentiation.

Nie Linhai, deputy inspector of the Electronic Commerce Department of the Ministry of Commerce, believes that the development of rural e-commerce can learn from medium-and long-term transactions, customization and quota production in the financial market, so as to effectively avoid the conflict between the traditional mode of production of "small production, big market" and modern e-commerce.

As an "old problem" in the development of agricultural products e-commerce, logistics still exists. Nie Linhai said that there has always been a problem of high logistics costs in China, the root cause of which is information asymmetry. at present, there are about 700000 logistics enterprises and 1.7 million related distribution vehicles, but 40% of the trucks on the road are empty. The development of the logistics industry is too scattered, to solve this problem, we must speed up the construction of intelligent logistics.