Saplings Sold to France: The E-commerce Story of Teng County Farmer Lin Binhua
Ten years of honing the sword, and its brilliance shines forth. Recently, 20,100 camellia oleifera saplings from Lin Binhua's nursery in Tianping Town, Teng County, passed the strict inspection of French customs and entered the French market smoothly, achieving a zero breakthrough for his nursery and also a zero breakthrough for sapling exports through the Wuzhou port. This is the fruit of Lin Binhua's continuous innovation in sapling management.
A Aiming at Small Saplings, Opening Up a Big World
At Lin Binhua's farm, the reporter saw that the entire farm is distributed in terraces: at the bottom are farmlands with convenient water access, covered with greenhouses one after another, and inside the greenhouses are cutting seedlings and seed seedlings that were only started to be cultivated this year; in the middle dry land are 1-year seedlings and 2-year seedlings; above is the hillside, with precious saplings such as agarwood, yellow rosewood, and golden camellia, already 1 meter to several meters tall. "Saplings of different specifications are sold by grade: 1-year grafted seedlings at 3 yuan per plant, 2-year grafted seedlings at 4 yuan per plant; 1-year seed seedlings at 1 yuan per plant, 2-year seed seedlings at 2 yuan per plant..." Lin Binhua said.
In his early years, Lin Binhua worked as a peddler, in distribution, and in vegetable cultivation, tasting both the sweetness of success and the bitterness of failure. In October 2003, by chance, he saw an article about the future trends of agriculture. The article was optimistic about sapling production and provided information about relevant policies. Tianping Town has a pleasant climate, abundant sunshine, plentiful rainfall, and fertile soil, making it suitable for sapling cultivation and planting. Combining this information, Lin Binhua concluded that planting saplings would have great prospects, and his passion for entrepreneurship arose spontaneously. He resolutely chose to rent more than 200 mu of farmland in Tianping Village, Tianping Town, to open up a world of his own.
Wuzhou is a famous production area for soft-branch camellia oleifera and red-flower large-fruit camellia oleifera, with good future development prospects, so Lin Binhua made soft-branch camellia oleifera and red-flower large-fruit camellia oleifera his main recommended saplings for cultivation.
At the beginning, Lin Binhua did not have much knowledge and skill in sapling cultivation. To this end, he read many books and learned from many masters. He also often went to sapling nurseries in Guilin and other places to visit and investigate, learning from their production and sales models, introducing high-quality new varieties, and always paying attention to policy trends and changes in market conditions. Through learning, Lin Binhua quickly adapted to market changes and adjusted the supply varieties and supply quantities of his products in a timely manner according to market needs, responding flexibly to market changes and taking solid steps in the sapling business.
He recorded his own techniques and experience, printed them into promotional leaflets, and placed them on the desk in his office for anyone to take. At the same time, he also posted them on his own webpage to share with forestry farmers in need, without any worry about "teaching the apprentice and starving the master."
Lin Binhua's sincerity won the appreciation and trust of forestry farmers and customers, and his sapling management and sales quickly opened up.
B Store Sales + Online Sales, Attracting French Customers
In 2006, a fellow villager working in Guiyang told Lin Binhua that Guiyang was doing urban greening and needed a batch of saplings. Lin Binhua hurriedly called to inquire, but the other party had already found saplings. While feeling regretful, Lin Binhua realized the importance of marketing and publicity, so with the help of friends, he set up the Binhua Farm webpage and began online promotional marketing.
One day in 2012, a young farmer hurriedly walked into Lin Binhua's sapling sales store. Through conversation, Lin Binhua learned that this young man was from Tangbu Town in the same county. He had seen online that Binhua Farm sold saplings, so he came to the address to buy camellia oleifera seedlings. Lin Binhua immediately realized that this is the internet age, and online marketing is particularly important. At the same time, only by pursuing both traditional sales and online sales would the prospects be broader. Therefore, he established his own online store, implementing store sales and online sales, breaking through the bottleneck of sales geographical restrictions and expanding his sales scope.
On January 25 of this year, a French customer needed camellia oleifera seedlings. Through an online search, the rich and colorful photos of various saplings on the Binhua Farm webpage attracted him, especially the soft-branch camellia oleifera seedlings. He found a translator to learn more details, and at the same time compared them with camellia oleifera seedlings from other places, finally determining Binhua Farm as the first consideration for purchasing seedlings.
The French customer was still not very reassured about the farm's camellia oleifera seedlings, worried that the webpage publicity was exaggerated, so he found the Guangxi Foreign Trade Company to contact Lin Binhua. On January 28, the French customer brought a translator to Teng County Binhua Farm to conduct an on-site inspection of the soft-branch (white-flower) camellia oleifera base. After inspecting the quality and growth of the camellia oleifera seedlings, he reached a purchase intention that same day.
It turns out that camellia oil is currently very popular in the French market, in short supply, and its price is 5-8 times that of olive oil. More and more farms are beginning to plant camellia oleifera trees.
February 22 was a happy day for Lin Binhua - the French customer completed all kinds of procedures and formally purchased 20,100 soft-branch camellia oleifera seedlings! Upon receiving the order, Lin Binhua immediately went to the Wuzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau to consult about relevant export procedures and specific operations, and invited the bureau to send personnel to guide on site, strictly handling export matters according to requirements: pulling up seedlings, washing the seedlings with a water gun so that not a bit of mud remained; removing leaves, applying moisturizer, sterilizing, killing insects, and applying water-retaining agent. He was busy until 12 midnight on February 24, when all preliminary work was completed. The next day, after strict quarantine by relevant departments, Lin Binhua's 20,100 saplings were smoothly transported to France through the Wuzhou port.
"Dear, summer is not suitable for transplanting saplings. It is recommended to buy in winter or spring, but bonsai saplings are no problem." On May 16, Lin Binhua's daughter Lin Jie was busy replying to online customers. Lin Jie is specifically responsible for online sales and has online stores on both Taobao and Alibaba. The one she remembers most deeply is a Guangdong customer named Zhu Naitian. That was when the online store had just opened, and there was no express delivery in the town yet. After receiving Zhu Naitian's order, she prepared the saplings for moisture retention, fixed and packed them, then hurried to the county seat to hand them to express delivery. When they reached the customer three days later, the saplings were intact, and even the leaves had not wilted. From then on, Zhu Naitian became a regular customer of Binhua Farm, buying several thousand saplings every year. "Many of our customers here are repeat customers," Lin Jie said.
Today, Lin Binhua sells 10 million saplings of various kinds each year, with an output value exceeding 7 million yuan, and online sales account for more than half of the total.
C Innovation Stimulates Vitality, Seeking to Become Bigger and Stronger
At the beginning, Lin Binhua only cultivated camellia oleifera seedlings. One day, three customers in a row came to buy other saplings. He realized that cultivating only one or two kinds of saplings not only had high labor costs but also weak market competitiveness. So he began to cultivate precious saplings such as yellow rosewood, agarwood, golden camellia, nuts, and osmanthus trees. At the same time, he formed an alliance with nursery owners in various townships and towns within the county to purchase and sell local specialty saplings and agricultural products such as kudzu seedlings, cassia bark, and red mushrooms on their behalf. In this way, Lin Binhua's farm expanded its scale and became more competitive in the market. Today, the saplings cultivated by the farm each year can basically be sold out according to plan.
The day the saplings were exported happened to be the Lantern Festival, and people were busy celebrating. But as soon as Lin Binhua sent out a request, 28 nearby farmers came to help. Being able to summon local farmers at a moment's notice benefited from the "company + base + farmer households" business model promoted by Lin Binhua.
Several years earlier, according to the wishes of local farmers, Lin Binhua promoted various business methods such as land equity participation, hiring as long-term workers, contracted cultivation and consignment sales, and farm-to-farm alliances. Farmer households could freely choose according to their actual circumstances. The interests of the farm and the interests of local farmers were closely combined, ultimately achieving the goals of farm development and farmers becoming prosperous.
Lin Binhua is good at seizing business opportunities. In 2013, our region carried out rural construction, and Lin Binhua immediately increased the cultivation of landscaping saplings such as osmanthus and magnolia. Since last year, these saplings have just come onto the market in large quantities. In 2015, the whole country launched the battle against poverty. Lin Binhua seized the opportunity and not only increased the cultivation of camellia oleifera seedlings but also increased the cultivation of economic saplings such as golden camellia and nut seedlings. These economic saplings sold very well, attracting large customers from outside the region such as Guangdong and Fujian. In the first 5 months of this year, Lin Binhua's sapling sales increased by more than 20% year-on-year.