Zhucheng small chestnuts ride the e-commerce express to sell across the country

Nowadays, diverse forms of internet marketing innovation are letting small chestnuts write a big story on the internet. Today, Guorun Food Company in Changcheng Town, Zhucheng City, Shandong Province, has become the first in the industry to try grafting internet thinking onto its business.

"Youthfulness" is how local chestnut farmers describe Guorun Food. In their eyes, those kids at Guorun Food tinker and fuss all day long, and although they cannot quite figure it out, the factory is profitable, and selling chestnuts to them means earning more money.

In fact, the young Guorun Food was still a traditional trading company before it embraced internet thinking, earning foreign exchange through exports. "In the internet era, still selling chestnuts through traditional sales channels is just OUT. Back when our Guorun online brand 'Juge Lizi' officially launched, sales during that year's 'Double Eleven' reached 2 million yuan." Meng Wei, head of Guorun Food Co., Ltd., said that the sales performance brought by the internet was something he had never expected, and during this "Double Eleven," Guorun's chestnuts were even sold to South Korea, Japan and other countries. Now, he is preparing to enter Amazon to sell chestnuts.

This change stems from a shift in the company's thinking. When the Guorun team was doing research, it found that most of China's chestnuts are exported to Japan and other places. Japanese people love eating chestnuts because they know chestnuts are good for health. Later the team reflected: "Why can't we provide healthy things for Chinese people?"

Meng Wei believes that domestically, no one has built a chestnut brand, and no one spreads the health concept of chestnuts. "We believe we can do it well ourselves. Based on this starting point, we want to do a good job in the chestnut industry." Meng Wei said that Guorun Food, after its initial success, stepped up the layout of its online brand, quickly setting up official flagship stores on Taobao, Tmall and Yihaodian in August 2014, along with 500 Taobao sub-stores.

In Meng Wei's view, Guorun's use of internet thinking is also a move forced by the market. The shrinking of traditional channels and fierce market competition both strongly demand that enterprises transform and upgrade, realizing an e-commerce model of "manufacturer-internet-consumer," thereby lowering commodity sales prices and reducing staff wages and logistics costs. "It's like opening a regional super online store. At present, 'Laiji Li' has more than 40 franchise stores nationwide, and our future goal is to develop 100,000 partners." Meng Wei said so.

Xu Chunguang, our reporter Yu Hongguang