The vegetable basket industry helps farmers carve out a path to prosperity

Bai Chunhua of Xinqiao Village, Zhangwan Township, Shanzhou District, is a widely known expert at getting rich. In 2012, she raised funds on her own to build the Xinqiao Vegetable Wholesale Market. Just when business was booming, Bai Chunhua became fascinated with e-commerce. She traveled all the way to Jiangsu to attend e-commerce training, and after returning she began preparing to set up the Xinqiao Village Information Service Station. Unexpectedly, she really did "stir up" something remarkable. During the Spring Festival of 2016, she sold several hundred vegetable container boxes online, achieving sales revenue of more than 70,000 yuan. She deeply felt the business opportunities and convenience brought by e-commerce, and decided to lead the local people to get rich together.

Bai Chunhua is now the information officer at the Xinqiao Village Information Service Station in Shanzhou District. She looks up all kinds of information for farming households, carries out technical training and connects them with sales channels. She is busy from morning to night every day, but she has also won a good reputation and the market. Recalling the many difficulties encountered in the early days of building the station, Bai Chunhua said that only after starting the Taobao store did she realize that the waters of online business were too deep, and that it was not something she could do on her own. A Taobao store needs professional people to run it, including graphic design, operations, marketing, after-sales and customer service, none of which can be filled by just anyone. But the biggest difficulties in developing e-commerce in rural areas are the problems of talent and logistics.

Since she chose this path, when has Bai Chunhua ever been afraid of difficulties? With no professional logistics and delivery personnel, she paid out of her own pocket to deliver goods to customers' doors; when buying things online on behalf of others, she always went to pick them up herself and did not charge any money. Driven by her example, some local people also began to pay attention to e-commerce.

Following the market and keeping timely track of price changes is crucial to the fruit and vegetable wholesale business. The internet gave Bai Chunhua "a thousand-li eye" and "a favorable wind ear." As long as she goes online, she can keep track at any time of the wholesale prices and all kinds of information from markets throughout Sanmenxia and even the whole country. Keeping closely in step with market conditions, her business runs as smoothly as a fish in water.

Expanding the scope of services and broadening business channels. In 2016, Bai Chunhua also set up the "Jiulianshan Fruits and Vegetables" Taobao store and invited experts to carry out technical training for farming households throughout the village, thereby bringing more local people into the effort. They built new vegetable greenhouses and expanded existing ones, working hard to achieve common prosperity.