Chinese e-commerce is stepping up efforts to "infiltrate" the rural market

"I bought a desktop computer online, which is not very easy to use, but I don't know who to return it to for repair. now if there is a problem, I can find a physical store, and I feel much more at ease." In the "JD.com gang service store", Yang Dong, a 26-year-old resident of Qingzhen, said while using a computer to inquire about goods.

The first "JD.com gang service store" in Guizhou Province recently opened in Qingzhen City, a county-level city under Guiyang City, with a total of six service staff in the store. It is mainly responsible for helping county and rural consumers choose and buy a full set of one-stop services for home appliances, such as home appliances, distribution, installation, repair, maintenance and replacement at JD.com 's online mall.

For a long time, China's rural residents have been at the end of the retail market, with limited channels for them to buy household appliances, few categories and mixed quality. Many rural consumers are not familiar with the booming online shopping in recent years, do not understand the goods and after-sales service policies, and have doubts about home appliance online shopping.

According to iResearch, China's rural population accounts for nearly half of the total population, but the proportion of netizens is less than 30%, and the proportion of online consumption is less than 10%, showing great market potential. Statistics show that the size of the national rural online shopping market reached 180 billion yuan in 2014 and will exceed 460 billion yuan by 2016, which will become a new growth point of the online shopping market.

E-commerce quickly captured the huge business opportunities brought about by this change. Alibaba, JD.com and other e-commerce giants all aim at rural areas, step up "encircling land in the countryside", compete for the rural market, and lay out the next strategic commanding point.

On December 18, 2014, Alibaba officially launched the "Thousand Counties and villages" plan, investing 10 billion yuan in three to five years to set up 1000 county-level operation centers and 100000 village-level service stations. In 2014, SUNING Yunshang Group invested heavily in the layout of the logistics network across the country and announced the strategic plan of rural e-commerce, hoping to build 10, 000 SUNING service stations within five years, covering 1/4 of the country's townships.

In 2015, JD.com accelerated the implementation of the "e-commerce strategy into rural areas". Taking the remote southwestern province of Guizhou as an example, all cities where prefectures are located have realized the distribution services of large household appliances. This year, JD.com will build more than 30 "JD.com help service stores" in more than 30 county-level areas in the province. In the future, JD.com will launch at a rate of about 1,000 per year.

It is understood that JD.com will soon start the construction of a "county-level service center" in Guizhou, with the center as the core, establish "rural cooperation points" at the township and village level under his jurisdiction, recruit rural promoters, and further sink the tentacles of e-commerce. In addition, JD.com will speed up the layout in Guizhou to build FDC warehousing, major business operation centers, and so on.

"over the past decade, China's e-commerce has mainly competed in big cities. JD.com 's most important strategy this year is channel sinking, mainly covering fourth-to sixth-tier cities, integrating offline virtual experience with online inventory, and upgrading e-commerce services. tap the potential of the rural market." Li Chen, general manager of JD.com Southwest District, said.

"E-commerce has always been a 'deficiency' in rural areas, and now e-commerce has taken the initiative to 'infiltrate' the rural market, helping to break through the 'last kilometer' of home appliances going to the countryside." Zhou Qin, chief economist of the Guiyang Municipal Bureau of Commerce, believes that this can solve the five major problems of high prices, few categories, no delivery, slow installation, and difficulties in return and exchange of rural household appliances, so that rural consumers can enjoy the same prices and services as in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Analysts pointed out that the development of rural e-commerce and its supporting warehousing and logistics construction will also have a significant effect on the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, such as improving the quality of life of China's rural population, expanding the sales channels of agricultural products, and attracting the employment of surplus labor.