E-commerce entering villages makes it more convenient for rural residents to shop online
As one of the provinces and cities in the national comprehensive demonstration of e-commerce entering rural areas, our province officially launched the related work in November this year. Recently, the Provincial Department of Commerce and the Provincial Department of Finance jointly issued the "Work Plan for the Comprehensive Demonstration of E-commerce Entering Rural Areas," with the government setting up the stage and enterprises playing the role, to improve the convenience of online shopping for rural residents and promote the growth of online sales of rural specialty goods.
Pilot farmers in seven counties and cities shop online
As one of the country's first batch of 8 pilot provinces for e-commerce entering rural areas, this year our province will use 140 million yuan in central government financial funds to select 7 counties and cities on a merit basis to take the lead in building comprehensive demonstration counties (cities) for e-commerce entering rural areas, exploring rural e-commerce development paths and models that both have local characteristics and can be replicated and promoted, opening up the "last kilometer" of two-way circulation of rural goods, realizing online sales of agricultural products and online purchases of industrial goods delivered to villages, and promoting the accelerated upgrading of the rural commodity circulation service system.
In this year's "Double 11" event, the rural market was especially dazzling. Statistics show that of Alibaba's more than 57 billion yuan in transaction volume, consumption from rural areas accounted for 10%, with mobile phones, flat-panel TVs, boots, down jackets and others all becoming hot-selling goods in the rural market. "With one click of the mouse, rural residents can buy good products from all over the country, and through the internet, Anhui's high-quality agricultural products can also be sold across the country, which both increases farmers' income and expands rural consumption." A relevant person from the Market Construction Division of the Provincial Department of Commerce told reporters that the first batch of demonstration counties will be based on counties or prefecture-level cities with a total population of less than 2 million people, and local governments will voluntarily organize applications.
The plan makes clear that within three years, under the province's overall planning, a number of demonstration counties with a typical driving role will be created, striving to make breakthroughs in relevant policies and institutional mechanisms. Among them, various circulation enterprises and e-commerce enterprises within the demonstration counties will widely participate in the development of multiple e-commerce formats, online shopping and online sales will grow rapidly, the commercialization rate of agricultural products will increase significantly, the annual average growth of e-commerce transaction volume on the existing basis will be no less than 30%, its proportion of local consumer goods retail sales will rise markedly, e-commerce logistics costs will gradually decline, and the level of rural circulation modernization will improve significantly.
Building a rural e-commerce ecosystem
The plan proposes that pilot counties and cities will rely on supply and marketing cooperatives, postal services, agricultural network service networks, as well as key circulation enterprises and e-commerce enterprises, and centering on the needs of industrial goods going to the countryside, agricultural products entering cities, and comprehensive service needs for rural e-commerce development, build a supporting service system for rural e-commerce; support e-commerce enterprises in landing in rural areas, circulation enterprises in developing e-commerce, and cultivate rural e-commerce enterprises; give full play to the comprehensive service functions of e-commerce, and accelerate the development of an e-commerce ecosystem with coordinated development of electronic transactions, online shopping, online payment, express delivery and others.
According to reports, in addition to improving the provincial e-commerce service platform and perfecting the county-level rural e-commerce service system, our province will also make full use of existing resources such as rural circulation and supply and marketing outlets, township post offices, villagers' service centers, and rural youth entrepreneurship bases to support supply and marketing, postal, e-commerce, circulation and home appliance repair enterprises in building e-commerce terminal service outlets, providing rural residents with online purchasing agents, product sales agents and delivery services, and actively expanding services such as finance, communications, consulting, tourism, and health and elderly care.
In addition to expanding terminal service formats, according to the plan, our province will also make full use of existing network information resources, improve the application areas of rural e-commerce, support young people in society and university graduates in founding e-commerce enterprises or carrying out online sales; expand sales channels for agricultural products, and drive the organization and standardization of agricultural production. At the same time, integrate various training resources serving "agriculture, rural areas and farmers," improve the knowledge and ability of grassroots governments, agricultural production enterprises, rural specialized cooperative organizations and farmers in the use and application of e-commerce, train rural e-commerce practitioners through multiple channels, enhance their skills and techniques in using e-commerce, and promote the expansion of online shopping and online sales and the development of rural e-commerce.
Improving the logistics and credit system
"The popularization of the internet in rural areas has solved the problem of selling agricultural products, but in fact it is not just these; only by solving shipping and receiving can e-commerce truly enter villages." Liu Xiaoyun, director of the Department of E-commerce of the School of Business at Anhui University, believes that promoting the development of rural e-commerce cannot be separated from a complete logistics service system. Therefore, the plan proposes that our province will, in conjunction with new urbanization construction, use the existing rural commodity circulation service system, give play to the service functions of township commercial centers, distribution centers, as well as rural finance, postal services, telecommunications, supply and marketing, and home appliance repair, and establish and improve a logistics distribution support service system adapted to the development of rural e-commerce. Improve the comprehensive logistics information service platform oriented to rural areas, and promote the development of third-party distribution and joint distribution in rural areas.
To achieve this goal, our province will encourage various enterprises such as key circulation enterprises, commercial logistics enterprises, supply and marketing cooperatives, and postal services to use and upgrade existing network facilities, vigorously develop third-party distribution and joint distribution, and proactively serve the needs of rural e-commerce development, and depending on their results, provide certain financial support for fixed asset investments such as improving comprehensive logistics information services oriented to rural areas and adding new equipment to the logistics distribution system.
Credit is the top priority in developing rural e-commerce. It is understood that our province will actively explore and gradually establish a credit system consistent with the development level of rural e-commerce. Encourage and use Internet of Things technology to strengthen source supervision of agricultural products and ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products traded through e-commerce; actively explore the establishment of an e-commerce commodity transaction traceability system adapted to the needs of e-commerce development, featuring "traceable sources, verifiable destinations, controllable risks, and accountable responsibilities"; vigorously promote the application of item coding and enterprise codes, and gradually build an e-commerce credit system based on organization codes and globally unified identification item codes.