Orange Grove Girls Join Forces in E-commerce, Forge a New Path to Prosperity
On December 14, 36-year-old Chen Bo, an orange grove girl from Chenjiagang Village in Yidu City, was happily counting and sorting the citrus packages about to be sent out by express delivery. From October 10 to now, Chen Bo has used the WeChat platform to "join forces" with brothers and sisters born in the 80s and 90s to sell more than 15,000 boxes of citrus, earning 588,000 yuan in revenue and realizing a profit of more than 300,000 yuan. Compared with the current average market selling price of 7 mao per jin for local citrus farmers, this increased income by about 300,000 yuan, with a net profit of 2 yuan per kg.
Chen Bo graduated from Yichang No. 3 Technical School, majoring in Electronics and Computer Applications. Harboring the dream of starting a business, she first worked in tourism in Zhangjiajie for 7 years, then in 2007 opened a farmhouse restaurant near Tanku Temple in Beijing. After the contract expired in 2012, she chose to return to her hometown to engage in agricultural activities, during which she worked at Qingjiang International Hotel. A chance encounter brought her an entrepreneurial opportunity: a guest staying at the hotel asked Chen Bo to help send a few boxes of citrus to his family in Beijing, and said that the honey oranges from the Three Gorges area of Yichang had a certain reputation in Beijing. Opportunities always belong to those who are prepared. Chen Bo thought, why not use the wealth of friends accumulated over many years away from home to sell the citrus from her hometown? So she posted information about her hometown's oranges on her WeChat Moments, and that same day several old friends placed orders. At first they bought 5 jin or 10 jin, and after receiving the goods there was a flood of good reviews. Due to the chain reaction on WeChat Moments, afterwards she could send dozens of boxes a day and earn several hundred yuan. Chen Bo's confidence grew greatly, and she simply quit her hotel job to focus on e-commerce. After a classmate of her younger cousin bought a box of oranges and ate them, he felt the taste was very good. Since he was the boss of Anhui Haofang Electromechanical Co., Ltd., he immediately ordered 2,300 boxes, sent respectively to Bengbu, Langfang and Fujian, each box 10 jin, 39 yuan per box. This order brought her more than 50,000 yuan in profit, and Chen Bo, having tasted the sweetness, became even more fired up for entrepreneurship.
Under her leadership, more than 50 local brothers and sisters born in the 80s and 90s followed suit and sought her advice. Next, Chen Bo is preparing to establish her own e-commerce company, register her own trademark, and gather a group of young people who want to start businesses to "join forces" and venture into the market. Not only will they sell citrus, but they will also integrate Yidu's tea, other seasonal fruits, cured meat, sausages and other local specialties all together and sell them across the country.