New | Welcome to my Taobao village: how rural e-commerce growth is helping to empower isolated communities
The new e-commerce on Taobao brings social gains along with new income for neglected communities in rural China
What is striking about the emergence of local leaders and grassroots movements in mainland Chinese villages where many residents trade online - the so-called Taobao villages - is that quite often small e-commerce merchants have started a movement away from government assistance.
Instead the managers of the online traders - who quite often started the company - have a unique management style, where they get on with the job, do all the tasks themselves, and learn how the technology works, instead of relying on someone to teach them.
Certainly e-commerce in China is dominated by Alibaba .... Three out of four online sales in China now occur on Taobao
Our rural-empowerment study at UNSW Australia is part of our ongoing investigation of digital enablement in social innovation.
We examined how information technologies provide new means of income generation for disadvantaged groups, improving their standard of living and creating a number of important social benefits.
However it has evolved at a different rate in different parts of China.
E-commerce in Suichang for example is dominated by agricultural products, such as bamboo shoots, tea, sweet potatoes and wild herbs.