The e-commerce story of Lin Binhua, a farmer in Teng County: selling seedlings to France

He has been sharpening his sword for ten years. Recently, 20100 Camellia oleifera seedlings in Lin Binhua's seedling farm in Tianping Town, Tengxian County have passed the strict inspection of French customs, successfully entered the French market and achieved a breakthrough in zero seedling farm, which is also a breakthrough in the export of seedlings at Wuzhou Port. This is the result of Lin Binhua's continuous innovation in seedling management.

An aim at small seedlings and open up a big world

The reporter saw in Lin Binhua's farm that the whole farm is distributed step by step. below is farmland with convenient use of water, covered with sheds, which are cuttings and seed seedlings that have only been cultivated this year; in the middle of dry land, there are 1-year and 2-year seedlings; above is the hillside, with valuable seedlings such as Chenxiang, Huanghua pear, golden flower tea, and so on, which is 1 meter to several meters high. "seedlings of different specifications are sold at different levels: 1-year grafted seedlings 3 yuan per plant, 2-year grafted seedlings 4 yuan per plant, 1-year seed seedlings 1 yuan per plant, 2-year seed seedlings 2 yuan per plant." Lin Binhua said.

In his early years, Lin Binhua worked as a peddler, circulation and vegetable grower. he tasted the sweetness of success and the bitterness of failure. In October 2003, by chance, he saw an article about the future trend of agriculture, which was optimistic about seedling production and provided relevant policies and other information. Tianping Town has a pleasant climate, plenty of sunshine, rich Rain Water and fertile soil, which is suitable for seedling cultivation and planting. Synthesizing this information, Lin Binhua believes that planting seedlings will have a good prospect, and his enthusiasm for starting a business arises spontaneously. He resolutely chose to rent more than 200 mu of land in Tianping Village, Tianping Town, to open up his own world.

Wuzhou is a famous producing area of Camellia oleifera and Camellia oleifera with good development prospects in the future, so Lin Binhua takes Camellia oleifera and Camellia oleifera as the main promotion to cultivate seedlings.

At the beginning, Lin Binhua did not have much knowledge and skills in seedling cultivation. To this end, he has read a lot of books and worshiped many masters. Also often visit the seedling farms in Guilin and other places, learn from its production and sales model, introduce high-quality new varieties, and always pay attention to policy trends and market changes. Through study, Lin Binhua quickly adapted to market changes and timely adjusted the variety and quantity of products according to market needs, flexibly responded to market changes, and took a solid step in the cause of seedlings.

He recorded his skills and experience, printed them into loose-leaf promotional materials, and placed them on his desk in the office for anyone to ask for. At the same time, he also posted his own web page to share with forest farmers in need, without worrying about "church apprentices starving to death."

Lin Binhua's sincerity won the appreciation and trust of forest farmers and customers, and seedling management and sales soon opened up the situation.

B store sales + online sales, attracting French customers

In 2006, a fellow-townsman who worked in Guiyang told Lin Binhua that Guiyang was engaged in urban greening and needed a batch of seedlings. Lin Binhua hurriedly called for advice, but he had already found the seedlings. Regretfully, Lin Binhua realized the importance of marketing and publicity, so with the help of friends, he set up a web page of Binhua Farm and began to carry out online publicity and marketing.

One day in 2012, a young farmer hurried into Lin Binhua's seedling store. After talking, Lin Binhua learned that the young man was from Tangbu Town in this county. Through online search, he saw that Binhua Farm operated seedlings, so he came to buy camellia seedlings according to the address. Lin Binhua immediately realized that it is the network era, and network marketing is particularly important. At the same time, the prospects of traditional sales and network sales will be broader. As a result, he established his own online store, implemented store sales and network sales, broke through the bottleneck of sales geographical restrictions, and expanded the scope of sales.

On January 25 this year, a French customer needed Camellia oleifera seedlings. Through online search, he was attracted by the colorful photos of all kinds of seedlings on the website of Binhua Farm, especially Camellia oleifera seedlings. He found an interpreter, understood it in detail, compared it with Camellia oleifera seedlings from other places, and finally determined Binhua Farm as the first consideration for seedling purchase.

French customers are not at ease about the Camellia oleifera seedlings on the farm, worried that the propaganda on the web page is exaggerated, so he found Guangxi Foreign Trade Company to contact Lin Binhua. On January 28, the French customer, with an interpreter, came to Binhua Farm in Tengxian County to inspect the soft branch (white flower) Camellia oleifera base. After inspecting the quality and growth of Camellia oleifera seedlings, they reached the purchase intention on the same day.

It turns out that tea oil is very popular in the French market, supply exceeds demand, and the price is 5-8 times that of olive oil, more and more farms begin to plant Camellia oleifera.

On February 22nd, it was a happy day for Lin Binhua-French customers perfected various procedures and formally bought 20100 soft branch Camellia oleifera seedlings! Upon receiving the order, Lin Binhua immediately went to Wuzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau to consult the relevant export procedures and specific operations, and invited the bureau to send personnel to the site for guidance and strictly do a good job in export matters in accordance with the requirements: pulling seedlings, rinsing saplings with water guns without any mud; defoliation, moisturizing agent, sterilization, insecticide, and water-retaining agent. I was busy until 12:00 in the evening on February 24th, and all the preliminary work was completed. The next day, 20100 seedlings of Lin Binhua were successfully transported to France through Wuzhou Port after strict quarantine by the relevant departments.

"Dear, it is not suitable to transplant seedlings in summer. It is recommended to buy them in winter and spring, but bonsai seedlings are fine." On May 16, Lin Binhua's daughter Lin Jie was busy replying messages to online customers. Lin Jie specializes in online sales and has online stores on Taobao and Alibaba. What she remembers most is Zhu Naitian, a Guangdong customer. That was when the online store was just opened, and there was no express delivery in the town. After receiving the order from Zhu Naitian, she prepared the seedlings for moisturizing, fixed and packed them, and then rushed to the county to send them to the express delivery. When she got to the customers three days later, the seedlings were intact and even the leaves did not wilt. Since then, Zhu Naitian has become a regular customer of Binhua Farm, buying thousands of seedlings every year. "A lot of us are repeat customers here." Lin Jie said.

Today, Lin Binhua sells 10 million seedlings of various kinds every year, with an output value of more than 7 million yuan, and online sales account for more than half of the total.

C Innovation stimulates vitality and seeks to become bigger and stronger

At the beginning, Lin Binhua only cultivated Camellia oleifera seedlings. One day, three customers asked for other seedlings. He realized that simply cultivating one or two kinds of seedlings not only has high labor costs, but also is not competitive in the market. So he began to cultivate valuable seedlings such as Huanghua pear, Chenxiang, golden scented tea, nuts, cinnamon and so on. At the same time, it has formed an alliance with seedling farmers in various villages and towns in the county to purchase and sell local characteristic seedlings and agricultural products such as kudzu, cinnamon, red fungus and so on. As a result, Lin Binhua's farm has expanded and become more competitive in the market. Today, the seedlings cultivated by the farm every year can basically be sold out as planned.

On the day when the seedlings were exported, it was the Lantern Festival, and people were busy celebrating the festival. But as soon as Lin Binhua issued an invitation, 28 farmers nearby came to help. This is due to Lin Binhua's business model of "company + base + peasant household".

A few years ago, according to the wishes of local farmers, Lin Binhua implemented various modes of operation, such as land ownership, employment as long-term workers, guaranteed education and sale, and field alliances, and farmers were free to choose according to the actual situation. The interests of the farm are closely combined with the interests of local farmers, and finally achieve the goal of farm development and farmers getting rich.

Lin Binhua is good at seizing business opportunities. In 2013, when rural construction was carried out in our district, Lin Binhua immediately increased the cultivation of green seedlings such as sweet-scented osmanthus and magnolia. Since last year, these seedlings have been on the market in large quantities. In 2015, the country launched a battle to get rid of poverty. Lin Binhua seized the opportunity to increase not only the cultivation of Camellia oleifera seedlings, but also the cultivation of economic seedlings such as Camellia oleifera and nut seedlings. These economic seedlings are very popular, attracting big customers outside Guangdong, Fujian and other regions. In the first five months of this year, Lin Binhua's seedling sales increased by more than 20% compared with the same period last year.