Online livestreaming e-commerce brings agricultural produce from farm to table across China

Thanks to livestreaming, farm produce from a village in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality can now be directly sold to consumers across the country.

Chen Cheng, a villager from Huangguashan village, Yongchuan district of Chongqing, started to promote local farm produce on Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo in 2020. Over the past two years, he has launched nearly 100 livestreaming sessions and accumulated over 50,000 followers, with more than 100,000 orders placed at his shop.

Chen Cheng and his wife buy vegetables for consumers during a livestreaming session. (Photo/Eyes News of Guizhou Daily)

Chen, who has established cooperative partnerships with at least 200 rural households from multiple towns and neighborhoods in Yongchuan, sells fruits and vegetables from the village such as bamboo shoots, plums, pears, as well as chicken, ducks and fish. Every month, his sales value can reach as much as 500,000 yuan (about $74,700).

“Nowadays a significant number of consumers want to buy fresh farm produce. Many of my customers are regular ones,” he said.

Chen, who used to work in Beijing, went back home to start his own business in 2017. The first option that came to his mind was selling the village’s delicious local specialties on an e-commerce platform.

To better showcase the products, Chen started to showcase the vegetables and fruits growing locally in the village’s fields and the poultry raised on farms via livestreaming sessions in 2020.

To introduce as many agricultural products as possible, Chen came up with the idea of hosting livestreaming sessions during the nine rural market days scheduled every month, when diverse varieties of products are publicly displayed for sale.

“Look at this freshly slaughtered pig, with a price of 66 yuan per kilogram,” introduced Chen during a livestreaming session watched by thousands of viewers on June 9, one of the market days in the locality. The pork Chen promoted for sale online was sold out in just two hours.

Chen Cheng buys farm produce from a local farmer. (Photo/Eyes News of Guizhou Daily)

Some of his regular customers also asked him to find a certain “grandpa” at the market – an octogenarian vendor selling homegrown water spinach, cucumbers and peppers – hoping to help him by making some purchases and whose vegetables, after all, tasted good. The vegetables sold by elderly vendors would therefore always sell out quickly through the online livestreaming platform.

Unlike other livestreaming platforms, Pinduoduo has launched a new function that can be used during livestreaming sessions. It enables sellers to easily share the links for featured products and makes it easier for buyers to place orders.

Chen’s customers are from all over the country, including those in their 20s and those aged above 80. One granny who left Yongchuan at a young age thanked Chen for letting her enjoy the food from her hometown, after buying products during his livestreaming sessions.

Apart from hosting online market fairs, Chen usually travels to households to purchase farm produce directly, and has become very familiar with the products produced by each household. His efforts have also been recognized by the local farmers themselves.

“Chen is a nice guy who offers a good price for my products. I don’t have to worry about the sales channel,” said a 70-year-old villager.

E-commerce platforms like Pinduoduo allow agricultural products to flow from farm to table, therefore shortening the supply chain and offering customers more choices. Over the past year, more than 61 billion orders have been placed on Pinduoduo, up 59 percent year-on-year.

An executive of Pinduoduo said that the platform will delve deeper into the field of digital agriculture to better harness technologies in order to benefit more agriculture production areas and farmers, which will provide a means to contribute to the continued modernization of agriculture and rural areas throughout the country.