E-commerce a boon for orange growers in Jiangxi

Cao Liping was among the first people in her hometown to sell oranges online.

The 39-year-old, a former housewife, now owns an e-commerce company that helps farmers in Xunwu county, Jiangxi province, sell 30 million yuan ($4 million) worth of fruit a year.

"In 2014, I decided to sell fruits online after I heard that a student who was in the same driving school as me earned 20,000 yuan a month," she said.

Cao had an orange orchard with 1,000 trees, and it didn't take long for her to realize that e-commerce, like her fruit, was ripe for the picking.

"Selling fruit online was more profitable then because e-commerce was in its infancy, and fewer people were engaged in it," she said.

Some of her acquaintances followed her and started their own online businesses, but ended up quitting.

"They quit because their customers often left negative comments online, saying that their oranges were not sweet enough. I had a similar experience, but I insisted on continuing to sell fruit. Then I got to know many of my other peers, enlarging my social circle," she said.

She said her work doesn't require a good education background, and she is grateful for the online business boom amid the COVID-19 epidemic.

"Despite COVID-19, I believe the fruit market's supply and demand will remain stable. What I need to do is improve product quality and its influence nationwide," she said.

Cao has taken many online business courses held by the county government, and she said she appreciates the local business environment.

From 2015 to 2022, the county organized about 100 e-commerce sessions, training more than 12,000 people out of the total population of 330,000 in the county, according to the Xunwu commerce bureau.

Furthermore, the county aims to boost its economy by promoting online sales of its oranges, passion fruit and kiwis, the bureau said.