The entrepreneurial story of the villagers of Hantang Village, Wuli Town, a nationally famous e-commerce village
Located in Wuli Town, Lingshan County, Hantang Village is a remote mountain village more than 10 kilometers from the town center. In this ordinary village of 1,050 households, there are as many as 230 online stores. With the help of the internet, the fruit tree saplings grown by the villagers travel across mountains and rivers to reach countries such as Lebanon, Japan and Malaysia. Today, Hantang Village has become a nationally famous “e-commerce village,” and the villagers' entrepreneurial story has even attracted the attention of famous Hollywood director Kristi Liby, who made a special trip with a crew to shoot a documentary.
Struggling through trial and error, the post-80s generation dares to “eat the crab”
“A loquat sapling sells for 6 yuan, and sometimes tens of thousands can be sold at once. If you can earn 1 yuan per sapling, after deducting labor and other costs, that is at least more than 10,000 yuan in income.” Entering Hantang Village, major fruit sapling grower Qin Wanfeng did the math for the reporter. Right beside the road into the village, Qin Wanfeng was negotiating business with buyer Liu Qionglu from Zhanghuang Town, Pubei County. Four villagers were moving 2,000 loquat saplings to the roadside, waiting for a large truck to load them.
“The increasingly developed internet has brought a broader market for Hantang Village's fruit saplings.” said Liang Chuancong, director of the Hantang Village Committee. With the help of the internet, some sapling buyers place orders directly online; others search online for information about fruit sapling cultivation in Hantang Village and come because of its reputation. Also because of the internet, the villagers of Hantang Village have bid farewell to the hard days of carrying saplings on their shoulders and backs to the town center to sell them.
That “golden saplings” could be grown in the fields was something the villagers of Hantang Village had never imagined. Recalling the journey of selling fruit saplings on Taobao, Huang Zhongwen, a member of the post-80s generation, answered succinctly with the four words “struggling through trial and error.” As early as 2008, Huang Zhongwen had already set foot on the path of online sales on Taobao. “A 5-square-meter tile-roofed house, one computer, one printer.” That was how Huang Dingzhong, Party secretary of Hantang Village, described the situation when Huang Zhongwen first started doing online sales. Although Hantang Village had more than 200 kinds of flowering and fruit tree saplings, including lychee, longan, mango and loquat, as product support, at the beginning the flowering and fruit tree saplings Huang Zhongwen sold online were not recognized by buyers. Buyers worried that the flowering and fruit tree saplings they liked would wither and die on the express delivery route because of packaging, transportation and other problems. Therefore, Huang Zhongwen's online store could sell only a few saplings a day.
After continuous experimentation, Huang Zhongwen decided to improve the packaging method and install cameras in the nursery, packaging room and office, broadcasting live through the online store to buyers the entire process of the saplings from selection and packaging to transportation. Because of the live online broadcast effect, as well as services such as returns if customers were dissatisfied after receiving the saplings, Huang Zhongwen's online sapling sales business quickly surged from a few saplings a day to several hundred a day.
Driven by example, villagers went online one after another
Seeing Huang Zhongwen's success, Hantang Village villager Liang Yuanfu, who had previously grown fruit saplings but, unable to find a market, used the saplings as firewood, made the decision to “stop going out to work and grow flowering and fruit saplings at home.” Driven by Huang Zhongwen and with technical guidance from relevant county and town departments, in just a few short years, Liang Yuanfu's family built a new house.
Following in Huang Zhongwen's footsteps, young people in Hantang Village used local agricultural product resources to open Taobao and Alibaba online stores, sell fruit saplings through online platforms, do Baidu promotion, join TrustPass, and use Taobao through trains, and so on. Now Hantang Village has 230 Taobao stores, more than 50 Alibaba stores, more than 60 Jinquan network stores, and more than 25 Baidu promotion operations. The farmers' fruit saplings are in short supply, prices are higher than before, and the young people have also created considerable wealth.
With a few finger taps and mouse clicks, in two hours in the morning, Huang Hongping, a member of the post-90s generation, completed 4 newly received online orders. The farthest buyer was from Shaoxing City, Zhejiang. “In a year, January to May is the peak season, and in peak season I can generally receive 15 orders a day.” While skillfully operating the computer, this young man introduced his family's fruit sapling cultivation situation to the reporter. At present, Huang Hongping's family has one Taobao store and one Alibaba shop. The fruit sapling cultivation bases of 100,000 square meters each in Qinzhou and Lingshan serve as the “goods supply factories.” Editing and publishing the online store content, taking photos of fruit saplings, managing the online store, getting goods, packaging, shipping…… all of this is done by Huang Hongping alone. Speaking of the hardships involved, Huang Hongping smiled and said: “As long as you are hardworking, that is enough.”
Leveraging the internet, a small village begins a new life
“Cultivating fruit saplings and opening online stores actually requires a lot of technology and also relevant licenses, such as the Forest Tree Seed Business License and the Forest Tree Seed Production License.” Liang Chuancong said, “Last year, in response to villagers' needs, the village committee invited teachers from Nanning Vocational and Technical School to give centralized classes to more than 100 farming households in the village. In the end, 50 people passed the exam smoothly and obtained qualification certificates.”
Cement roads replaced dirt roads, Western-style houses replaced tile-roofed houses, cars replaced motorcycles, trucks replaced tractors…… “People here used to be relatively poor, but now e-commerce has brought gradual changes to the village.” Liang Chuancong said, “At present, there are only 9 poor households in the village, which is already an remarkable thing for our village.” Leveraging the internet, Hantang Village's fruit sapling planting area has grown larger and larger, now reaching more than 800,000 square meters, with more than 200 varieties of fruit saplings. Last year, the village's online sales reached 160 million yuan.
Leaving Hantang Village, it was exactly noon, when the children of Hantang Village Primary School were getting out of school. Looking at the children's sunny smiling faces and the patches of green fruit sapling fields, Huang Dingzhong said with emotion, “The villagers of Hantang Village will continue to write legends with their sweat.”