Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba seeks further growth and has turned its attention to the Chinese countryside. It has created a fund to help local youngsters navigate the eCommerce world.
Large growth market
That is why Alibaba will invest one billion yuan (nearly 140 million euro) to give a million youngsters an education about eCommerce, so that they can go and launch their own web shop, right in their own village. Alibaba hopes this will spur local farmers, among others, to sell their products online.
The company has also built nearly 800 order locations, to help people in the countryside order things online. Those locations are also pick-up locations and the goal is to expand to 100,000 locations all across China within the next three years.
A third of all online Chinese customers comes from the Chinese countryside and compared to their urban revenue, rural turnover grew twice as fast in 2015. On the other hand, their average spend is much lower than what urban consumers spend, so there is still growth possible in that regard.
