Nearly 4,000 agriculture-related e-commerce trading businesses nationwide, only 1% achieve profitability
On the 16th, the "2014-2015 China Agricultural Products E-commerce Development Report" was released in Beijing. Hong Tao, dean of the China Food (Agricultural Products) Safety E-commerce Research Institute and professor at Beijing Technology and Business University, said that agricultural products e-commerce has become a new hotspot after books, clothing, and 3C. According to statistics, there are nearly 4,000 agriculture-related e-commerce trading businesses in China, but due to problems such as disorderly market competition and high logistics costs, only 1% of e-commerce businesses can reach a profitable state.
The report shows that, taking agricultural product sales on the Alibaba platform as an example, from 2010 to now, sales increased from 3.7 billion yuan to more than 80 billion yuan in 2014, with an average annual growth rate of 112.15%. As for fresh food e-commerce on Taobao, in 2013 the national fresh food e-commerce transaction scale reached 13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 221%, and it is expected to reach 26 billion in 2014.
In terms of the number of e-commerce businesses, according to statistics, in 2014 China had 31,000 agriculture-related e-commerce enterprises, among which there were 4,000 agriculture-related e-commerce trading businesses, forming a market pattern of "two superpowers, many strong players, and a niche segment." The "two superpowers" made up of Alibaba and JD.com occupied the main share, while some emerging agricultural products e-commerce businesses also formed their own distinctive development models after obtaining capital injections in recent years.
Regarding the problems existing in China's agricultural products e-commerce, Hong Tao pointed out that the homogenization of e-commerce website construction is serious, leading to disorderly competition, loss-making operations, and the coexistence of website establishment and website closure. According to report statistics, at present among domestic agriculture-related e-commerce trading businesses, only 1% can be profitable, 7% have huge losses, 88% have slight losses, and 4% break even.
In this regard, Zhang Guo, director of the Market Circulation Division of the Market and Economic Information Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that many people still do not fully understand agricultural products e-commerce. "If every farmer household does e-commerce, it will cause the situation where goods are sold out on the first day and there are no goods to sell on the second day, which is also a waste of resources." He suggested developing agricultural products e-commerce intensively, establishing brand awareness, and exploring profit models for agricultural products e-commerce.
In addition, logistics, as a long-standing difficult problem in the development of agricultural products e-commerce, still exists. Nie Linhai, deputy director of the E-commerce Department of the Ministry of Commerce, said that China has always had the problem of high logistics costs. He pointed out that the fundamental reason for high logistics costs is information asymmetry. At present, there are about 700,000 logistics enterprises and 1.7 million related delivery vehicles. About 40% of trucks on the road are running empty, there are too many small logistics enterprises, and industry development is too scattered. To solve this problem, it is necessary to establish an information platform and build smart logistics.