Xiaomi sells for a big price - how did Zhou Nan do it?

"The rice here can sell for 20 yuan per jin," said Wang Qingzhi, head of the Dongrun Rice Planting Professional Cooperative in Guanyun County, Jiangsu Province. "Fine words butter no parsnips - seeing is believing. Our rice packaging boxes have a QR code on them; just scan it with your phone and you can learn all the information about the rice." Rice at 20 yuan per jin sounds unbelievable, but it is indeed the truth. The QR code Wang Qingzhi mentioned is where the secret of wealth lies.

The Dongrun Rice Planting Professional Cooperative in Guanyun County was established in 2009, with a down-to-earth brand called "Dingdang River Rice", named because it is produced on the banks of the Dingdang River, an important drinking water source in Guanyun County. At first, the cooperative had high-quality rice sources in hand, yet no one recognized their value and they could not sell for a good price, and for a time they could not open up the market. "There are too many on the market selling old rice and polished rice under the guise of organic, pollution-free rice. Even if we talk until our mouths are worn out, no one believes us. Watching 'pork sell for the price of cabbage' really leaves a bad taste in the mouth." It was not just Wang Qingzhi - all the members were anxious, but they simply could not find a breakthrough for sales.

In August 2011, Zhou Nan became a college-graduate village official, coming to Liuli Village, Dongwangji Township, to serve as a member of the Party general branch committee. Through the "month of investigation to become familiar with township and village conditions" activity for newly appointed village officials carried out by the county Party committee organization department, Zhou Nan learned about the situation of the Dongrun Rice Planting Professional Cooperative. Using the marketing expertise he had studied, and after investigation and analysis, he wrote a research report titled "Suggestions on Dingdang River Rice Sales". "When I saw Xiao Zhou's report, I felt this young man was no ordinary person, and that our rice had hope," Wang Qingzhi said, still a little excited when recalling the situation at the time. Next, through coordination by the county Party committee organization department, Zhou Nan contacted Director Zhao Jiamin of the county agriculture committee and carefully expressed his ideas to Director Zhao. After hearing them, Director Zhao was very happy and immediately expressed full support.

In May 2012, Zhou Nan adopted a "piggybacking" approach with the Guanyun Agriculture Network, establishing a subpage. On the subpage he set up video of the entire rice production process from planting, production, processing, packaging to finished product, and configured images of the China Organic Product logo and production license, as well as a product introduction, place of origin, nutritional composition table and so on. In October 2012, Zhou Nan discussed with the professional cooperative setting up a QR code on the Dingdang River Rice packaging box, so that as long as users scan the QR code with their mobile phones, they can enter the Dingdang River Rice page and browse all the information. Zhou Nan said: "Doing this has two advantages. First, we can use the government authority of the Guanyun Agriculture Network to quickly gain customer recognition; second, it increases publicity and expands influence." Through this method, the cooperative gradually opened up its sales situation, and sales increased year by year. Today the professional cooperative has established a trading Co., Ltd., with an annual output of 1.2 million jin of Dingdang River Rice and annual sales revenue of 24 million yuan. The products not only sell well in the province, but are also sold far away to Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing, Gansu, Shaanxi and other provinces and cities, becoming a key private enterprise in Guanyun County.

Now Zhou Nan has grown into deputy secretary of the village Party general branch. When asked about Zhou Nan's feelings, Zhou Nan said: "There is inevitability within chance. The chance was that I had the opportunity to go to Dongwangji Township as a village official; the inevitability is that the fast train of Internet information has become a new engine promoting economic and social development, and Guanyun County started early and gradually matured in encouraging and promoting college-graduate village officials to use the Internet to serve 'agriculture, rural areas and farmers'. As a college-graduate village official, I merely took advantage of the 'east wind' to help serve 'agriculture, rural areas and farmers'."