Brand is the key to "Internet + Agriculture"

How does the Internet add to agriculture? In recent years, through the follow-up investigation of Suichang and Lin'an in Zhejiang Province, the reporter found that the brand plays a unique role in it and must attach great importance to it.

Suichang and Lin'an, both mountainous counties and cities, take the lead in exploring the way in the field of e-commerce of agricultural products, which can be described as one south and one north of Zhejiang, but the former lacks industrial brand guidance because it takes the region as the core demand. Although it is the first to log on to the county-level pavilion with "characteristics of China" on Taobao, it is difficult to improve its actual sales under its fame, while the latter takes the pecan brand as the guide to drive agricultural transformation and upgrading.

Experts believe that the comparison between Suichang and Lin'an shows that rural economic e-commerce within the county needs the strong support of brands, and a full benign interaction should be formed between e-commerce and branding.

Suichang: a lot of local goods but lack of brand support

Suichang is located in the mountain area of southwestern Zhejiang, with a beautiful ecological environment, rich in bamboo charcoal, baked potato and other agricultural special products, but because of its remote location, the products are difficult to get out of the mountains.

The advent of the Internet era has broken the limitations of time and space and given mountain counties like Suichang a chance to overtake by bends. Since 2005, some people in Suichang have been selling local products on Taobao, but as the vast majority of local products are non-standard products, consumers have doubts, coupled with the limited business capacity of online merchants, the trading volume has not been high.

In March 2010, the online shop association was jointly launched by the regiment county party committee, county bureau of industry and commerce, county economic and trade commission and other departments, with the aim of providing a service public platform of "information sharing and complementary resources" for many online stores and suppliers.

The exploration of the association provides a quick way for many agricultural products in Suichang to be electrocuted. In 2013, Taobao launched the "characteristic China" channel, which made Suichang the first county in the country to land. For a while, Suichang became famous and attracted a steady stream of people from all walks of life to observe and learn from the scriptures.

Over the past few years, Suichang has held a series of activities such as online sales of red grapes and alpine pork. Although each time it is claimed to be a great success, the data show that the actual transaction is not satisfactory. Since then, with the rise of e-commerce for agricultural products in various places, the competition in the network market has become increasingly fierce, and many areas have come from behind to catch up, so it is difficult for Suichang Pavilion to attract attention.

Lin'an: brand leading Transformation

Different from Suichang's model of building a public service platform as an e-commerce engine, Lin'an successfully implemented a brand breakthrough through "Lin'an pecan", thus leading the transformation and development of the whole rural economy.

After 2009, infected by the atmosphere of e-commerce, traditional agricultural enterprises in Lin'an have opened up online channels, and network brands have emerged as a new force. Qu Jiang, deputy director of the CARD Rural E-commerce Research Center of Zhejiang University, summarized the characteristics of Lin'an e-commerce development as "one product" to "one belt". "Product" is not only a brand, but also a category. From the landmark characteristic products of Carya cathayensis to the establishment and influence building of regional public brands, Lin'an gradually electronically commercializes the pecan industry and extends it to the category of nut-roasted goods; as the name implies, "belt" is an industrial belt with a clear division of labor from planting, processing, sales, operation to marketing, and forms a regional division of labor.

After 2013, Lin'an started another phase-- the building of an e-commerce ecosystem. From the infrastructure construction represented by the e-commerce park to the introduction of service providers, from taking the lead in the establishment of industry associations, to the construction of e-commerce talent training system, and the introduction of various preferential policies, Lin'an e-commerce has entered a period of rapid expansion. The government, service providers, trade associations and all kinds of business entities form organic interaction.

The reporter found that the development of e-commerce has not only sold out pecans in Lin'an, but also brought other agricultural products "online", but also promoted the development of related industries such as product packaging, customer service, packaging and logistics, providing more employment opportunities for villagers. According to statistics, the 1100 nut online stores in Lin'an alone can drive more than 5000 people to employment.

Brand building is the key

At present, "Internet + Agriculture" is popular everywhere, and many people in the e-commerce field believe that e-commerce does not recognize brands but only sales, because the creation of online brands is no longer a traditional path to operate, and it can often create a brand in a short period of time. It can also destroy a brand, and sales volume equals to having a brand.

Through the comparison of the e-commerce practice of Suichang and Lin'an, we can find that although the e-commerce of the two places are almost synchronous and famous, the actual sales are very different, although there are various reasons, but the key is that there is no regional brand in Suichang. Lin'an has the pecan brand as detonation, which leads to the transformation and upgrading of the whole agricultural economy.

Qujiang analysis believes that Suichang is rich in ecological agricultural products, but the lack of industrial agglomeration, it is difficult to find leading products, resulting in its popularity and influence is very weak. Even if the Internet can break geographical boundaries and make small mountain villages go to the big world, without strong brand support, it is almost impossible to attract enough interest from consumers and place orders.

"the creation of online brands has a rule, that is, through the detonation of individual products, and then drive the hot sales of the entire online store."

The practice of Lin'an just confirms this law. Taking pecans as a breakthrough, the city quickly won the attention and recognition of consumers through the joint interaction of regional public brands and corporate brands. On this basis, push bamboo shoots, small sweet potatoes and other local specialties, and add the specialties and tourism to form a deeper product awareness.

Data show that in 2014, in the agricultural products transaction county list of Ali retail platform, most of the top 10 are supported by regional brands, or the main products have distinctive features, market share and popularity. Expert analysis also believes that in the future, agricultural products "three products and one standard" products will account for more than 80% of the entire e-commerce.