Online sales of agricultural products have good prospects but plenty of difficulties
On November 6, the first China (Weifang) Agricultural Products E-commerce Conference was held in Weifang. Domestic comprehensive e-commerce platforms with considerable influence, such as JD.com, SFbest, and Gome Online, as well as local emerging fresh food e-commerce platforms such as Jiadong Farm, held face-to-face exchanges. Weifang is a major agricultural city. How to leverage e-commerce platforms to expand sales channels for agricultural products and increase farmers' income is a new issue worth discussing.
Building websites independently --
Logistics and customers are difficult problems
The Jiadong Farm online mall was founded in 2012. It is a locally grown agricultural products sales website in Weifang. After two years of trial operation buying and selling self-produced agricultural products, it has gained a group of regular customers. He Minglei, operations manager of the Jiadong Farm online mall, introduced that the website's operating model is that once agricultural products are ripe, they are immediately published on the website. Weifang residents sitting at home or anywhere with an internet terminal can order their desired agricultural products with one click of the mouse.
"Our biggest advantage is freshness. We deliver twice a day, at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., directly from the fields to residents' hands, shortening the circulation links in the buying and selling of fresh food and saving time and costs," He Minglei said. After two years of operation, there have also been many problems. "The main one is the logistics problem. Fresh food requires a strong delivery network and preservation facilities. If this link does not work, everything else is empty talk. Now we already have a delivery network within Weifang city. Those in surrounding counties and urban districts have just been completed, and delivery efficiency still needs further testing and improvement, while other cities or outside the province are much more difficult."
"On the other hand, developing customers requires a lot of publicity and promotion. It is very laborious to make them believe in the quality of our fresh food, so developing customers is very difficult, but generally those who start buying our fresh food will continue to buy, so maintaining customers is relatively easy. Contacting farmers is also a problem. Some farmers do not understand what e-commerce is and are afraid that we are scammers, so they are unwilling to cooperate with us. We mainly sign supply contracts with farms," He Minglei said.
Gao Xia, who lives in Lixia District, Jinan, began ordering vegetables through the website of Shouguang Tianyuan Fruit and Vegetable Company last year. Li Chunxiang, general manager of Shouguang Tianyuan Fruit and Vegetable Company, introduced that starting in October 2012, the company's e-commerce platform began operating and launched a "home delivery" service, achieving "point-to-point" vegetable delivery from farm to table. "We use our own logistics, and the cost is very high. This part of the business is almost not profitable now, but e-commerce and direct delivery are definitely the trend. We must persist in and develop this business well," Li Chunxiang said.
Relying on large e-commerce platforms --
High entry threshold
The rise of large e-commerce companies is the most convenient and efficient way to solve the circulation of agricultural products. Online stores such as Yihaodian have begun laying out the agricultural products market and reaching into counties, greatly promoting the sales of many agricultural products. Agricultural products featured on the home pages of these large e-commerce companies are often snapped up.
"My colleagues often look at various websites when they have time and compare them with one another. Before, they only went on Taobao, but now Taobao has too many fake goods, so many people also go on JD.com, Gome, Yihaodian, and COFCO Womai. For example, when buying daily grain and oil, I often look for special offers on COFCO. They come from all over the country, which is very convenient. I buy vegetables less often," said Li Fang, who works at a real estate company in Weifang.
Yu Hao from Qianlihu Village, Gaoliu Town, Qingzhou City studied agricultural machinery in university. After graduation, he returned to his hometown, contracted 10 mu of land, and built a small farm, planting various agricultural products such as wheat, corn, Chinese yam, sweet potato, and potato, all using organic fertilizer.
"I am more attentive and manage it well, so the harvest is very good. But sales give me a headache. I mainly send them to local small supermarkets and vegetable markets. I opened a store on Taobao, but a new store has no reputation, so sales are very low. Large websites like JD.com and Yihaodian are not even something I dare think about. First, I do not have that much stock, and the fees required to sell there are too high," Yu Hao said.
According to Wang Bo, manager of the investment promotion market department at Gome Online, the maintenance costs and customer service costs needed to operate an e-commerce platform are not low, and certain fees have to be charged for entering these platforms to sell. "And there must be both quantity and quality. Only good quality can be sold on our platform. Once you enter, there may be very large sales, but without quantity, customer needs cannot be met," Wang Bo said.
Opening a store on Taobao --
Publicity and marketing are worries
Zhang Jianxin from Dalun Village, Daotian Town, Shouguang City, in his spare time, helps his parents put agricultural products such as their own grown grain, free-range Shouguang chickens, and native eggs on Taobao for sale. Opening his "Xiaoxin Farm" on Taobao, the reporter saw that his store decoration was very careful, with all kinds of goods neatly classified and arranged. "I now only have a one-diamond reputation, and traffic is very low. I can only make sales of around 1,000 yuan per month," Zhang Jianxin said.
In Zhang Jianxin's view, the main reason his Taobao store's sales are dismal is the lack of publicity and marketing methods and funds. "There are several thousand stores on Taobao just selling grain. It is too hard to stand out here, especially for a new store like mine," he said. To participate in Juhuasuan for promotion, or to get on the Taobao home page, the fees required are too high and simply impossible to bear.
"There are still some problems selling on Taobao. What we sell are genuine free-range chickens and native eggs from our own family. Many sell under the banner of free-range chickens at too low a price, and we cannot compete. And goods like eggs are very hard to mail. We can only buy specially made packaging, which immediately raises the cost a lot. Spread over each egg, the packaging cost alone is 0.3 yuan," Zhang Jianxin said.
"People like me are still okay. At least I have the technical skills and can open an online store and take a photo of the field to upload online. Most farmers in our village, especially those a bit older, simply do not know how to operate it, let alone open an online store," Zhang Jianxin said.
Zhu Xiangdong, from the same village as Zhang Jianxin, is 54 years old this year. His family not only grows vegetables but also raises Shouguang chickens. He said: "Things like online stores, I only hear my children talk about them. I simply cannot manage them myself, and I know nothing at all about electronic payments and the like. With the children not by our side, it is too difficult for us old couple to sell things online."