Tursun (center) presents a plaque to the members of the specialized farming cooperative. (People's Daily/ Li Yumeng)

In March 2012, Vizdan launched its service and began promoting its products via social networks and e-commerce platforms. In spite of good sales, Vizdan was soon faced with the problem of poor logistics, a problem shared by all the e-commerce stores in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

 "Wang Juntao suggested that we should enter into a partnership with the e-commerce stores in Beijing, send the goods to our Beijing partners based on forecasted sales, and let them deliver our goods. Thus, we solved our problem and became capable of delivering our goods to any place in China within three days," Tursun explained. He also gave the reporter his predictions for the development of Vizdan for this year: "Due to the partnership with Beijing e-commerce stores, we will grow and provide many more varieties of local agricultural produce."

Through experience, Tursun and his team realized that in the expansion of their business they should make a priority of good communication with farmers in border areas inhabited by the ethnic minority groups. Moreover, they should overcome the language barrier to communicate with local farmers, among whom ninety percent knew little about the internet. In that context, they urged officials from different ethnic groups to cooperate with each other. They provided local farmers with more than 100 jobs for people responsible for procuring and sorting the agricultural products. Lastly, they built an alliance with e-commerce companies to solve the problem with logistics. To date they have built 30 purchasing centre in Aksu, Hotan and other places across Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and two offices in Kashgar and Turpan, to handle business in southern Xinjiang and northern Xinjiang.

"Currently, sixty percent of our products are sold by the B2C stores while the rest are sold by the Taobao shops," said Tursun. "Vizdan is a combination of cooperative and company. We make use of social networks, B2C stores and C2C Taobao shops to sell our products. The B2C stores not only sell our products but also provide the C2C Taobao shops with the logistics service of warehousing, while the social networks build our image and Taobao shops sell our products directly."

With some two thousand farmers acting as suppliers, and fifty thousand regular clients, Vizdan has achieved some renown among online shops. Tursun expressed his wish to share the experience and standards of Vizdan, expand cooperation with farmers, and build the Vizdan cooperative alliance for the purpose of helping those farmers stay in their home towns and enjoy a decent and prosperous life.

Guo Yanqin is the director of rural regional development centre at Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics. She says that Vizdan represents a businesslike approach to the management of agriculture, updating information to satisfy consumers at home and abroad and making it possible for these consumers to access the fresh, delicious and authentic agricultural products of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

This article was edited and translated from 《吐尔逊用网络打开家乡优质农产品新市场》，source：People's Daily，Author： Hu Renba