E-Commerce Changing the Lives of Farmers: Taobao Villages of China

Taobao is China’s largest consumer-to-consumer marketplace. At the time of Alibaba Group’s IPO, alexa.com listed it as one of the ten most-visited websites in the world. Everyday more than 100 million people visit Taobao to buy and sell just about every product or service imaginable, accounting for an estimated 80 percent of the online retail sales in China. Taobao has become a part of everyday life for the Chinese people, who use it for everything from being up-to-date in fashion trends to buying movie tickets to groceries. Moreover, as Chinese consumers have been increasingly going in for smartphones, Taobao’s mobile app has seen a huge increase in volume of sale and purchase. Taobao’s website reflects the local culture and shopping habits of Chinese consumers. But, who is the vendor at Taobao? Is there any possibility of some villagers using Taobao to make money? We selected 14 Chinese villages which have been remarkably successful, using the Taobao platform. Not all these villages were developed before they started using the Taobao service. However, the internet and e-commerce have changed the lives of the farmers of these villages, just as Mr. Jack Ma had predicted in1995. We hope that such a change will encourage more and more farmers to further use the internet to develop their enterprises.