Agricultural e-commerce station to the tuyere 100 billion market waiting to take off

In 2015, one of the proposals of Zhang Jindong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of Suning Yunshang, was about "promoting the construction of agricultural product circulation system". This time, he paid attention to agricultural e-commerce. Alibaba, Jingdong, Suning and other giants have rushed to the beach behind agricultural e-commerce, is the accelerated penetration of the Internet into rural areas and traditional agricultural industries.

Agricultural e-commerce station to tuyere 100 billion market to take off

With the active layout of various capitals and the vigorous promotion of government policies, the development of agricultural e-commerce is on the verge of starting a prairie fire. Some insiders predict that once the rural consumer market is effectively activated, hundreds of billions of market value companies will be born.

"The wind is blowing", agricultural e-commerce "spring is coming"! However, standing on the tuyere of agricultural e-commerce, pigs may not be able to blow up. Most self-supporting fresh e-commerce platforms are called "losing money to earn money", which is one of the portrayals. Behind this, what did they experience? Through interviews with participants in each link of agricultural e-commerce and experts in the industry, the reporter of "Daily Economic News" sorted out and analyzed the real ecology, business model and realistic dilemma of the whole agricultural e-commerce industry chain.

Industry ecology

Sellers multiply agricultural products e-commerce "feast" curtain

Li Shizhong, a 62-year-old farmer in Ya 'an, Sichuan Province, known as the "e-commerce old man," sells kiwi fruits from his village online to the whole country. But so far, He is still not familiar with the Internet, But he also wants to sell more local specialties through online stores,"Compared with the traditional wholesale channel, Online sales prices are doubled, Finally down, Each catty kiwi fruit profit is 2~3 yuan higher."

Li Shizhong's story is only one of the epitome of nearly one million agricultural sellers across the country. According to the statistics of Ali Research Institute, on Alibaba platform alone, the retail sellers of agricultural products in 2013 were 394,000, and in 2014 the figure was 750,000, nearly doubling. Ali also predicted that the market capacity of agricultural products e-commerce in 2014 is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.

Behind this is not only the enthusiasm of farmers to expand sales through the Internet, but also the desire of various capitals to compete for and seize the huge potential market, and even the promotion of national policies, which makes this "feast" of agricultural products e-commerce open.

After disrupting most industries, e-commerce is also changing the most traditional agriculture. According to Wang Xiangdong, director of the Information Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the change of e-commerce to agriculture is to break through the market limitation and the resource limitation.

E-commerce sellers of agricultural products have multiplied

Ya 'an famous mountain area is famous for its green tea. Although it is only a few kilometers away from the core tea area of Mengding Mountain, Feishui Village, Jianshan Township, where Li Shizhong is located, mainly produces kiwi fruit. On the whole, kiwi fruit production is better than tea production, so it has become the main source of income for the village for many years.

Li Shizhong has served as the director of the cooperative for decades. Kiwi fruit in the village in 2014 is not only easy to sell, but also more profitable.

Online accounts for about a quarter of the 200,000 catties of kiwifruit sold as of early December last year. Compared with traditional wholesale channel sales, the price on e-commerce platform is doubled, and the profit per catty is 2~3 yuan higher.

The amazing speed of sales impressed him even more. "The sales in 48 hours exceeded 70,000 yuan, and finally sold 6103 jin, earning 115354 yuan, which I didn't dare to think about before." Li Shizhong recalled the "electric shock" experience in September last year.

Online sales surged as Li Shizhong participated in two "e-commerce poverty alleviation" activities organized by the China Poverty Alleviation Foundation in conjunction with relevant parties.

The actual effect of the activity exceeded expectations. "After two practices, we feel that e-commerce can play a greater role in poverty alleviation in the future." Liu Wenkui, secretary-general of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, said in an exclusive interview with Daily Economic News. "The transportation and infrastructure in the vast poverty-stricken areas are relatively poor, and the cost of goods in the circulation link is relatively high. Through e-commerce integration, the original shortcomings can be solved." Liu Wenkui said. In addition to online promotion, the Foundation also helps farmers to uniformly package and brand kiwifruit.

The "spring breeze" of agricultural e-commerce is blowing more "old farmers". Like Li Shizhong, Tang Hong of Meishan Renshou County, close to Ya 'an, quickly saw the "power" of e-commerce. On February 3,2015, the person in charge of Renshou Hekou Don't Know Fire Cooperative told reporters that "several thousand catties are sold every day for these two days", participating in the "Renshou Specialty Hall" activity on a well-known e-commerce platform, directly driving sales.

Old farmers like them, who used to sell their produce online only through traditional channels, have a new identity tag: "produce seller." Today, the total number of this population has reached nearly one million.

From "a spark of fire" to "a prairie fire", Ali Research Institute described the rapid development of agricultural e-commerce in 2012 and 2013. The Alibaba Rural E-commerce White Paper 2013 report released early last year pointed out that the number of sellers operating agricultural products on Alibaba platform was as high as 394,000. "According to Ali's data, agricultural retail sellers reached 750,000 in 2014, nearly doubling year-on-year." Chen Liang, a senior expert at Ali Research Institute, told the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that the final data has not been finally confirmed, but it is almost doubled.

Farmers get order power and pricing power

Retail sellers of agricultural products have multiplied, many of whom are farmers who did not understand the network. The reason why they are touched is that e-commerce enables agricultural products to get rid of the original slow-selling dilemma.

Sichuan loquat association responsible person said frankly, In the past all harvest season loquat will be slow sales, Because loquat mature storage time is short, Short time to find sales difficult.

For a long time, farmers 'production is generally blind, fragmented and low-end, and sales are often the biggest problem. In Wang Xiangdong's view, the change of e-commerce to agriculture is to break through the market limitation and the resource limitation.

Wang Xiangdong told the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that by using e-commerce, farmers break through the limitations of local market, so that farmers can obtain the convenience of directly connecting with wide-area large market channels.

"E-commerce gives farmers the right to order and price." Wang Xiangdong pointed out that the original information asymmetry made farmers in the middle of market transactions at a disadvantage, now farmers can "directly online business, face the market, directly negotiate prices, take orders."

At the same time, e-commerce makes price information more transparent. For example, in the past wholesalers received goods, farmers did not know the price of each intermediate link, terminal market,"through e-commerce can understand the price of other places, buyers want to cheat is not easy, there is room for bargaining," Wang Xiangdong pointed out.

In fact, Li Shizhong was more touched before is to see the wholesaler's high profits,"Our wholesale price of a catty does not exceed 5 yuan, And wholesalers in the online 3 jin can sell to 99 yuan high price."

E-commerce reduces the intermediate links of agricultural products circulation and can also break the limitations of local original resources. Around the Spring Festival of 2015, Li Shizhong also sold other kinds of fruits produced around him in his online store. "By obtaining orders online, organizing production locally, importing raw materials, equipment, materials, accessories, etc., a brand-new industrial chain oriented by market orders can be established." Wang Xiangdong pointed out. The case of Liu Pengfei, the king of Kongming Lantern, is regarded as a typical example of e-commerce changing resource limitations. Liu Pengfei's hometown, Ningdu, Jiangxi Province, was originally a large agricultural county. The production of Kongming lamps stimulated local employment and gave birth to a new industry. "Through the e-commerce platform, we can promote local specialties at a lower cost, sell them online in large quantities at reasonable prices, and then guide the local agricultural industry to transform and upgrade to e-commerce and modernization." Jingdong Group rural e-commerce strategic cooperation director Li Heming said.