The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) of the PRC has released its latest report, showing that 77.14 million rural consumers shopped online last year, a 40.6% increase compared to a year ago. The revenue of Nongminw.cn, a one-stop service site for rural farmers, has reached RMB 178 million (USD 27.9 million). The scale of online shopping among rural residents totaled RMB 180 billion, an increase of over 60%.
Kong Linyu, a deputy director at the ministry, said that there were many offline to online collaborations among traditional enterprises in the villages. As of August, China Post has helped 100,000 service sites go online.
E-commerce giants Alibaba, JD.com and Suning are also focusing on their competitions in rural areas. As of the end of September, Alibaba has built 109 county-level service centers in 21 provinces and set up rural service points in 4247 villages. Its number of average daily orders has surpassed 50,000 items, according to TechWeb. JD.com has completed 700 county-level service centers.