Rural e-commerce welcomes a historic development opportunity

On November 2, the Third China Business Innovation Conference, jointly hosted by China Business Newspaper, China Commerce and Trade Press and the China General Chamber of Commerce, was held in Beijing. With the theme of "Internet Plus New Business," the conference conducted in-depth discussions on topics including innovation and bottlenecks in the Chinese economy, green business in the "Internet Plus" era, path choices for e-commerce development, omnichannel business innovation, and venture capital and business innovation, from multiple levels including policy interpretation, expert theory and practical case studies. Among these, rural market development and the historic opportunity for rural e-commerce drew the attention of attendees.

At the conference sub-forum "China Retail Industry O2O Omnichannel Innovation Summit," attending experts proposed that from 2003 to 2013, China's retail industry went through a "golden period" that lasted ten years. As a beneficiary of China's active economic development through reform and opening up, the retail industry was bidding farewell to three former dividends: the dividend brought by rapid economic growth, the dividend brought by China's urbanization, and the demographic dividend brought by China's massive consumer population base. For retail enterprises to create glory again, they must use the internet to launch an entirely new profit model, and omnichannel retail is the new reality that all retailers must face. Only by providing services to urban and rural consumers anytime and anywhere can they avoid being eliminated in competition.

At another conference sub-forum, the "Business Model Innovation Summit in the Internet Plus Era," attending entrepreneurs, experts and scholars were thinking about what exactly should be "plussed" when the transformation of physical retail meets "Internet Plus," and how to "plus" it. Whether traditional shopping malls or hypermarkets, as well as enterprises represented by chain home appliance retailers such as Suning and Gome, all are constantly exploring the transformation of the traditional business sector. Whether actively moving closer to the internet or being forced to transform, under the leadership of mobile internet, these traditional commercial enterprises, as traditional retail declines, are constantly breaking through their own limitations. Based on their own characteristics, they are strengthening community functions, innovating models, expanding rural e-commerce, and returning hypermarkets to their original form, improving online and offline operations and organically combining the two, thereby increasing consumer stickiness and stimulating more consumption potential. Among these, the potential of the rural market received the attention and affirmation of attendees. More than half of China's 1.3 billion people live in rural areas. Over the past year or two, the slogan of commercial enterprises going to the countryside has resounded across the land of China. Although rural income levels are relatively low and the consumption capacity of household units lags behind that of cities, in total volume it is still not inferior to the urban market. Attendees believed that with national policy support above and public demand below, rural e-commerce will usher in a historic development opportunity and will become a golden point for China's future e-commerce development, and the pace of development in rural areas should be accelerated.

Enterprise representatives and attending experts also offered suggestions during discussions on how to develop rural e-commerce. Urban e-commerce finds it difficult to serve rural users well, mainly because last-mile service and last-mile interaction are the "fatal weakness" for urban e-commerce. Rural consumers' recognition of the internet is growing, but traditional transaction habits remain obvious. Therefore, to build a rural e-commerce platform, it is necessary to take its own unique path, integrate local resources, and create a localized e-commerce service platform. Building a localized rural e-commerce platform faces enormous challenges: technical development is difficult, basic capabilities are weak, resource integration is difficult, capital investment is large, and there is a lack of professional talent and professional operations. Some rural e-commerce enterprises believe that rural e-commerce should actively create conditions, integrate resources from multiple parties, help member stores grow rapidly, comprehensively improve member stores' supply chain management capabilities, online and offline and non-product operating capabilities, and accelerate transformation and upgrading into rural community O2O service platforms. They expressed confidence in building rural e-commerce platforms well, so that village residents and city residents can enjoy the same consumer services.