How rural e-commerce can develop in the current environment

As China's economic development enters a new normal, further expanding market momentum has become an increasingly prominent issue. Under the severe circumstances of weak growth in export demand, China, as the largest developing country, must strive to build an economic growth momentum mechanism led by domestic demand. Vigorously developing rural e-commerce with the help of "Internet Plus" and accelerating innovation in the rural circulation system is a new path to explore. At present, the foundation for developing rural e-commerce in China is already fairly solid:

First, the internet has already entered rural areas, more and more farmers are going online, and the demand potential for rural e-commerce development is great. Second, the "Ten Thousand Villages and Ten Thousand Townships" market project has spread rural circulation outlets densely, providing a physical store foundation for developing rural e-commerce. Since February 2005, when the Ministry of Commerce launched the Ten Thousand Villages and Ten Thousand Townships market project, it has already had a history of more than ten years. Nationwide, all provinces and cities have improved commodity circulation networks, allowing rural household stores to benefit rural residents. The dense distribution of a large number of physical stores has provided convenience and a precondition for developing rural e-commerce. Third, the network advantages of rural postal and supply and marketing outlets have provided convenience for developing rural e-commerce. For example, China Post's business scope covers all cities, counties, and townships (towns) in all 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) nationwide, with 118,000 express service outlets, and supply and marketing cooperative business service outlets have covered one third of all administrative villages nationwide, with supply and marketing cooperatives having 600,000 rural service outlets. Fourth, the tremendous progress in urban and rural transportation and communications infrastructure has provided a technological foundation for developing rural e-commerce. From the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" to the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" was an era of massive investment, major rise, and great transformation in China's transportation, communications, and other infrastructure. China has taken the lead in entering the era of high-speed rail and expressway networks, and more and more counties, townships, towns, and villages are connected by high-speed rail, expressways, and civil aviation. Fifth, the attention of governments at all levels and the effect of policy support preferences have provided policy dividends for developing rural e-commerce. Sixth, the construction of a new countryside and the development of specialized agriculture have provided a material foundation for developing rural e-commerce. The tremendous changes in the appearance of villages under new countryside construction have provided an environment for e-commerce to go to the countryside, and modern agriculture and specialty agricultural products have provided circulation objects for e-commerce, such as Yanling yellow peaches, Anhua dark tea, Jiangyong taro, Dongjiang fish, Linwu duck, and Taojiang bamboo ware in our province. In addition, under the new economic normal, the deepening of domestic market competition, urban e-commerce actively going to the countryside, implementing blue ocean strategies, and competing for the rural market have provided market momentum for developing rural e-commerce. In addition to several major e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, Suning.com, and JD.com tapping the rural market, some startup companies have also built e-commerce platforms using rural purchasing points as entry points.

There are problems in rural e-commerce development that cannot be ignored. In developing rural e-commerce, one must never engage in performance-driven impulses, and one must not carry out a rural e-commerce "Great Leap Forward." There should be a full assessment of the difficulties and bottlenecks that may be encountered in China's rural e-commerce development:

Rural e-commerce infrastructure conditions are lacking. Because China's rural areas are widely distributed, combined with the characteristics of high agricultural input and long cycles, as well as the scattered residence and scattered consumption of rural residents, rural commercial circulation logistics infrastructure and information infrastructure lack the attractiveness and attention for investment. The lack of complete and efficient commercial circulation logistics infrastructure and communications facilities has hindered the rapid development of rural e-commerce.

There are many "three left-behind groups" in rural areas, and e-commerce talent is in short supply. Although rural areas have a large population, a large part of the population consists of users not yet activated by e-commerce. At present, in most rural areas, educated, knowledgeable, and capable young people and strong adult laborers have gone to other places to work or seek employment. Those left behind in rural areas are mainly the elderly, the weak, women, and children, namely left-behind elderly people, left-behind women, and left-behind children. Among these three left-behind groups, very few can truly be converted into e-commerce users.

The scattered, small, and poor nature of traditional agricultural production methods naturally rejects modern e-commerce. China's agriculture is basically small-scale production with the family as the production unit. A single farming household cannot adapt to the rapid changes in the agricultural product market, and there is a contradiction between "small farmers and the large market." The degree of standardization of agricultural products produced separately by farming households is low, making it difficult to distinguish true from false and good from bad, so netizens dare not place orders; at the same time, agricultural products themselves have very low added value and do not earn much money, leaving e-commerce with no profit to make, which affects its enthusiasm for agency operations.

The scattered and small-scale nature of rural residents' living and life brings difficulties to logistics distribution. Almost all express delivery companies find it difficult to extend their reach to the village level. In short, logistics distribution has become the biggest bottleneck restricting rural e-commerce development.

The dilemma of online payment in rural e-commerce. On the one hand, rural finance and online finance lag behind, and financial service institutions in rural areas are relatively scarce; on the other hand, the service penetration rate of online banking and mobile banking is still relatively low, and farmers are still more accustomed to relying on rural financial institutions such as postal savings and credit cooperatives to carry out fund settlement.

The lag in traditional rural consumption awareness and consumption habits. Rural residents' consumption awareness and consumption habits are relatively traditional and conservative. Their transaction behavior and patterns are accustomed to traditional cash-on-the-spot transactions, and they lack understanding of online payment and the separation of money and goods in time and space. Changing these aspects is by no means a matter of one morning or one evening.

In addition, under the environment of developing rural e-commerce, there are still many issues that should be noted:

In developing rural e-commerce, attention should be paid to promoting modern agricultural development through reverse pressure from circulation, fundamentally solving the contradiction between Chinese-style small-scale agricultural product production and the large market. Through e-commerce, accelerate the construction of an agricultural product standardization system, force the smallholder production model to move toward modern agriculture, realize large-scale planting, standardized management, and branded marketing, promote the grading of agricultural product quality, specification-based packaging, standardized labeling, and product branding, accelerate the construction of a quality and safety traceability system for fresh agricultural products, and lay the foundation for high-quality agricultural products to enter the circulation field through e-commerce platforms.

With the help of rural e-commerce, reconstruct rural circulation system innovation. The rural circulation system includes the rural consumer goods circulation system, agricultural product circulation system, agricultural means of production circulation system, rural renewable resource circulation system, and rural service industry circulation system. Through rural e-commerce, it is not only about industrial products going downward and agricultural products going upward, but about promoting a rural circulation revolution and reconstructing the entire rural circulation system through rural e-commerce.

In developing rural e-commerce, it is necessary to accelerate the cultivation of circulation entities and improve the degree of organization in rural circulation. Promote agricultural product distributors to achieve corporatization, scaling, and branding, and improve industrial concentration. Support and cultivate a group of large agricultural product circulation enterprises, leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization, transportation enterprises, professional cooperatives, and other agricultural cooperative economic organizations that operate both online and offline, and promote them to become bigger and stronger. It is necessary to vigorously develop new rural e-commerce platforms. It is necessary to use the opportunity of rural e-commerce to highlight the development of rural circulation intermediary organizations and leading enterprises, which are the focus of organizational innovation in the rural circulation system.

In developing rural e-commerce, it is necessary to fully integrate and leverage the advantages of the rural postal network. It is necessary to improve the coverage of postal public services, fully leverage the advantages of postal enterprises in having "many outlets, long lines, and broad coverage," and benefit the rural market universally. It is necessary to strengthen the construction of postal e-commerce platforms, strengthen postal logistics support, enhance logistics distribution capacity in rural areas, and build a nationwide-city-level-county and township-village four-level logistics distribution network system.

In developing rural e-commerce, it is necessary to improve policy support for rural e-commerce. Government policy support should focus on solving the shortcomings and bottlenecks of rural e-commerce. Through forms such as government procurement of social public services, establish various product databases suitable for online sales and rural e-commerce purchasing and consignment outlets, open up the "last kilometer" of e-commerce, and provide preferential policies for investment in infrastructure and platform construction such as e-commerce, cold chain logistics, and rural logistics distribution, as well as e-commerce talent training.