How can agricultural wholesale markets embrace e-commerce?

Currently, more than 80% of China's agricultural products each year circulate through a network of about 4,200 agricultural product wholesale markets across the country. Agricultural wholesale markets are both indispensable infrastructure in the agricultural product circulation chain and vested interests. However, as the wave of fresh produce e-commerce grows ever more turbulent, the agricultural wholesale industry has already felt strong unease. Beijing Xinfadi has opened an official flagship store on JD.com; the Shouguang Agricultural Products Logistics Park tried the auction model very early on; the Chongqing Xiangmanyuan e-commerce platform is hailed as a benchmark for agricultural wholesale markets transforming into e-commerce; and the Shenzhen Agricultural Products Company has even built e-commerce platforms covering multiple levels, and invited former Alibaba CEO Wei Zhe to jointly plan a major agricultural product B2B e-commerce platform.

In the face of industry reengineering, agricultural wholesale markets and fresh produce e-commerce are actually mutually reinforcing. Leading enterprises in China's agricultural wholesale market sector have already begun exploring modern circulation facilities and the world's advanced electronic auction trading model, while new agricultural companies with internet genes have also begun to lay out the middle and upper reaches of agriculture, driving the entire industry chain. In the middle and lower reaches of agricultural product circulation, a localized agricultural wholesale market can fully combine with fresh produce e-commerce to better solve industry problems and ultimately complete the integration of traditional industry and the internet. The possible cooperation methods between localized markets and different e-commerce platforms are as follows:

Local markets and vertical e-commerce. A localized agricultural wholesale market can cooperate with localized vertical e-commerce, rent out or provide infrastructure, and jointly build a sales system spanning online and offline. It can even use local fame to jointly build brand channels, incorporate retail terminals within the market's radiation range as offline terminals of a shared brand, let retail terminals take on the role of delivery stations while operating independently, channel online orders to retail stores near customers, and achieve nearby delivery or customer online payment with nearby self-pickup. The delivery tasks of vertical e-commerce are dispersed to countless retail stores or solved by consumers through self-pickup, and it is even possible to organize socialized delivery, outsourcing the small-range dense delivery tasks around a certain retail store to nearby idle labor. In the above cooperation, the local market's infrastructure and brand fame reduce the e-commerce platform's hardware construction costs, delivery node construction costs, and brand marketing costs; while the e-commerce platform's good online operation capability and customer maintenance capability further enrich the brand connotation of the agricultural wholesale market, reduce intermediate links, extend its connection surface with local customers, and strengthen its control over the local market.

Local markets and B2C (business-to-consumer) platforms. If agricultural wholesale market giants build B2C platforms, they have neither first-mover advantage nor traffic advantage, and need to invest too many resources to cultivate market fame. Moreover, with giants such as Tmall, JD.com, and SF Express blocking the way, the possibility of successfully standing out is not great, so a B2C platform is not a good choice for a start. However, existing platforms can first be used to develop B2C business, further enrich brand connotation, increase customer connection surface, and prepare for building a platform later. A localized agricultural wholesale market can use third-party platforms and third-party logistics, select high-quality products within the market, preferably overseas products or base products, which is conducive to stable goods flow and quality control, make a few single products into hits, and after forming a brand, further expand the range of selected products, cultivate more suppliers' stable supply capacity, further enhance brand fame and supply chain control capability, and finally build its own platform for traffic diversion.

Local markets and B2B (business-to-business) platforms. The Shenzhen Agricultural Products Company has set up several B2B electronic trading platforms for bulk products, but they all target products that are easy to standardize, such as white sugar and silk cocoons. In fresh products, the relatively well-formed B2B electronic trading category in China is the electronic auction of fresh cut flowers, but it also coexists with both counterpart trading and spot auction, and has not achieved remote delivery of products, requiring on-site inspection of goods and price estimation. The reason is that the degree of product standardization is still not high, and the traceability system is still imperfect. Most agricultural wholesale markets do not even have electronic settlement, but it is undeniable that B2B e-commerce platforms are an important direction for the transformation of leading agricultural wholesale markets. Electronic settlement work can first be used to cultivate user habits, and then it is still necessary to continue studying product standardization. Leading enterprises with strong strength may as well give it a try, but the premise is to first gather a batch of high-quality bases as upstream customers, concentrate standardized labor in the industry chain, and release diverse labor such as planting and catering. This is where the greatest effort of the entire model lies.