何处寻找中国的新兴消费者

Where to Find China’s New Shoppers

2 JAN 19,2016 11:01 PM EST

By Adam Minter

China’s economy might be faltering,but Alibaba--the world’s largest e-commerce company--is determined to inject some optimism into a gloomy picture.This week it launched the Ali Chinese New Year Shopping Festival holiday and designed to tap into one of the few bright spots in China’s economy:the growing clout of China’s rural consumers.

China’s Managed Markets

It’s an underappreciated and easily overlooked demographic.After all,for more than 30 years China’s economic boom has been powered by the investment and infrastructure spending necessary to transform a largely agrarian society into one in which half the population now lives in cities.But that other half didn’t remain stagnant during these years,and their income levels--though well behind their urban counterparts--are high enough now to make them a key source of future growth.

Getting to this point hasn’t been easy.As elsewhere in the world,China’s countryside has lagged in developing the infrastructure necessary to bring in products taken for granted in urban centers.Roads in many of China’s more than 500,000 village are barely wide enough for cars,much less delivery trucks.For e-tailers in particular,connectivity poses a major challenge:Rural dwellers accounted for only 27.5 percent of China’s 668 million Internet users as January 2015,despite long-standing Chinese government efforts to extend Web access nationwide.

On the positive side,rural consumer demand is strong.According to a November report form China’s Ministry of Commerce,77.14 million rural Chinese shopped online last year--a 40.6 percent increase form 2014.Meanwhile,Nielsen reports that rural Chinese spend more online on average than their urban counterparts,and their online spending is growing faster--by 64 percent in the second quarter of 2015,compared with a national average growth rate of 54 percent.

That upward trend isn’t surprising.Per capita rural Chinese income growth,boosted by rising salaries for migrant laborers and government assistance,has outpaced its urban equilvalent for five years,according to Chinese government figures,and is expected to exceed 10,000 yuan($1520) in2016.When per capita incomes approached these levels in China’s cities,retailers rushed to establish brick-and-mortar stores.

Something similar is happening with e-commerce.However,rather than opening stores(or waiting for the government to build better or wider roads through villages),China’s biggest e-tailers are laying infrastructure of their own to promote the sector’s growth.So,for example,Alibaba has built more than 10,000 rural service centers across China,where locals can pick up packages they ordered online or drop