E-commerce Going to the Countryside and into the Cities Requires Advancing Three Integrations

According to media reports, China's e-commerce market transaction volume reached 16.2 trillion yuan in 2015, an increase of 21.2%. Relevant experts predict that in 2016, the total online shopping market in rural areas is expected to exceed 460 billion yuan, showing a "blowout" trend. At present, the booming internet e-commerce industry has become one of the engines of county-level economic development.

However, e-commerce going to the countryside and into the cities also faces various practical problems. During research, the following were found: First, the policy system needs to be improved. Compared with other coastal regions, inland county-level cities lag behind in planning, supervision, guarantee and other policies and regulations related to e-commerce industry development, as well as in small and medium-sized online sellers.

Second, the main participants in online selling are small, and the overall business scale and level are not high. There are very few leading e-commerce enterprises with high visibility, great influence and wide coverage. In addition, e-commerce service formats are monolithic, and the cultivation of small and medium-sized service institutions engaged in e-commerce consulting, certification and agency operation is still relatively weak.

Third, there is a lack of professional talent. The introduction and cultivation of e-commerce talent cannot meet the needs of inland e-commerce development. In particular, there is a shortage of specialized talent, and there are even fewer interdisciplinary talents who understand both technology and business management. The extreme scarcity of talent has become a bottleneck restricting inland e-commerce development.

Whether these problems can be solved and whether the organic integration of "online" and "offline" can be achieved is related to the success or failure of the major undertaking of e-commerce "going to the countryside and into the cities." Therefore, advancing integration from the three perspectives of talent, policy and goods is crucial.

First, advance the integration of urban and rural e-commerce professional talent with "Internet Plus" as the core. On the one hand, all localities should establish and improve multi-level talent cultivation and training, and promote the continuous emergence of local high-end e-commerce talent, leading talent and excellent teams. On the other hand, large inland production enterprises should be encouraged to attract talent by building nests to attract phoenixes, and to introduce through multiple channels all kinds of senior professional talent and interdisciplinary talent suitable for inland e-commerce development.

Second, advance the integration of urban and rural e-commerce policies with "Internet Plus" as the core. All localities can, in accordance with the policy requirements of higher-level governments and relevant departments, further establish and improve special support policies for e-commerce development that are compatible and matched with them. Vigorously implement e-commerce-related projects and environmental development, improve the actual level of enterprises' and consumers' online application, and improve the radiation capacity and cross-regional marketing capacity of inland e-commerce enterprises.

Second, advance the integration of urban and rural e-commerce goods with "Internet Plus" as the core. For example: for urban e-commerce industrial parks, it is necessary to take leading e-commerce enterprises as the center, integrate product and merchant resources within the market, operate the four-level service system of city, county, township and village, open up the last kilometer in rural areas, and let agricultural means of production and industrial goods go to the countryside and into households to serve the rural economy. At the same time, efforts should also be made to advance the construction of large e-commerce platforms for local specialty agricultural products and accelerate the improvement of product display, sales and delivery capabilities; relying on service stations established at all levels by county-level e-commerce, integrate village and township specialty agricultural products and merchant resources, vigorously implement the online marketing project for branded products, strive for enterprises to conduct business on online retail platforms such as Tmall and Taobao Mall, and ultimately achieve agricultural products going online, entering cities and entering markets for sales and increased income.