Wantou, a village 350 km from Beijing, has become known as one of China's "Taobao Villages," home to over 500 online stores on Taobao, China's largest online shopping site under the e-commerce giant Alibaba.
With a stable but "boring" job in a nearby town, An in 2009 pioneered online sales of handwoven crafts in Wantou, where a tradition of wicker handicrafts has been handed down for at least 600 years.
An has since opened a physical store and a small factory with the cooperation of six neighboring family workshops in order to fill the orders flooding in from customers across the country.
"The online store has gained popularity and trust among netizens, who also bring business to my physical store," said An.
Chinese internet Alibaba defines a "Taobao Village" as a village in which over 10 percent of households run online stores and village e-commerce revenues exceed 10 million yuan per year.
By the end of 2012, more than 1.63 million Taobao stores were registered in rural areas. Total transactions from the 14 "Taobao villages" hit 5 billion yuan last year, according to a report released by Alireserach.
The growth of "Taobao Villages" has brought vitality to traditional agricultural areas of China, said Chen Liang, senior expert with Aliresearch.
Chen said that the villages are exploring a new path for China, with potential to realize sustainable economic growth and narrow the urban-rural income gap, much like the miracle created in Xiaogang Village over 30 years ago.
Earlier this month, the government of Shandong Province, a region known as China's farm produce powerhouse, put forward preferential policies for developing e-commerce, including helping graduates and migrant workers start online farm produce trade in remote areas.
China's Internet users reached 591 million in the first half of 2013, and e-commerce revenues hit 4.98 trillion yuan in the same period.
"We should pay closer attention to 'Taobao villages' in the long term. They are a transitional stage in agricultural and rural modernization," said Qiu Zeqi, director of the Center for Sociological Research and Development Studies of Peking University.
Source: Xinhua
