Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Wang Ting
Express collection point at the village market Source: Times Finance
On January 28, with the end of the holiday, the countryside and small counties sent off the most lively Spring Festival in recent years. After three years of dormancy, the wave of mobile Internet has changed the county economy.
"Now it's express delivery to the villages, and each village builds a branch... It was built in September last year. Yanzi, who does express delivery business at the rural market in Xishui County, Hubei Province, told Times Finance that during the Spring Festival, there are many people who shop online, and more than 1,000 pieces are delivered to the store every day, which is related to the State Post Bureau's "village through express" policy.
In the past, swallows' villagers went to the market mostly to buy daily necessities, agricultural tools and fertilizers, but this Spring Festival, when they saw someone walking in the direction of the market, the villagers would ask more - "Is it to get the express?" ”
In this eastern Edong land, the changes are much more than that. E-hailing cars go directly to the gate of the farmhouse, physical store owners transform to receive online installation orders, county takeaway brothers can be seen everywhere, and more and more people make a living on the Internet.
After being robbed of business by the online store, serve the online store
"Taking orders online now is definitely better than opening a store before."
On the day of the Northern New Year, Wang Wei and his wife were taking their children to visit relatives at their mother-in-law's house, and the couple also went out to complete an installation order halfway. He signed up for multiple installer apps, and he also received income during the New Year.
According to Wang Wei, merchants who sell home products on the Internet generally package installation, and some merchants will place orders in the installation order receiving app, outsource the installation service, and the system will automatically match the installation master near the receiving place.
Wang Wei quotes and grabs orders on the App, once the consumer receives the household product, he will install it door-to-door, install a toilet for 50 yuan, install a cabinet or shower for 5 or 60 yuan, and then the installation cost will be received through the App.
In the process, Wang Wei must learn to communicate patiently with consumers, and if consumers are not satisfied with the installation, he must also rework. Because once he receives consumer complaints, he runs the risk of being blocked by the app and can no longer accept orders through the app.
Wang Wei and his wife were originally competitors with e-commerce, but now they are integrated into the e-commerce after-sales system, and their working mode is completely different.
Wang Wei and his wife used to be individual businessmen, and in 2011 opened a lamp and bathroom shop in the county building materials city, with more help from relatives, friends and fellow villagers, and fewer after-sales disputes. In recent years, due to the development of online shopping and changes in urban planning, the passenger flow of building materials city has become less and less.
Wang Wei had hoped that the high-speed rail station would be built near the building materials city Source: Times Finance
"A lot of customers look at products in the store, ask for prices, and place orders online... There are also reasons why the online store sells better than us, and after-sales, refunds and returns are more convenient than us. In August 2022, Wang Wei transferred the store, and the couple found another means of livelihood.
In October, Wang Wei followed the advice of his peers to take installation orders online, downloaded and installed the order-taking App, and after several online exams, he devoted himself to it, mainly installing lamps, toilets, showers, etc. In order to make the App send more orders, he also paid a deposit of several thousand yuan.
During the Double 11 promotion period in 2022, due to many people shopping online, Wang Wei received a lot of orders, and then there was an epidemic in the country, logistics was stopped in a large area, his orders were greatly reduced, and there were more orders before the Spring Festival.
At present, Wang Wei can receive six orders a day and earn hundreds of yuan, and some orders need to be assisted, and Yuehong will go together. Over time, the wife quit her original job at the factory, and they plan to do it for a long time.
In five years, the volume of deliveries has increased twentyfold
On the evening of the 28th day of the lunar month, Xiaoying, a young white-collar worker, and two small hair partners went to Yanzi's grocery store and each took a courier, which was socks purchased online, an electric kettle, and gifts from friends in Guangdong. Yanzi also called out the names of Xiaoying and the three of them, and exchanged a few pleasantries.
Xiaoying told Times Finance that at noon that day, he saw that the express status was updated to "in delivery", and called the courier, who replied that the express was at the town distribution point, and Yanzi's husband was loading the car, suggesting to pick up the parcel in the afternoon.
The express delivery received and signed for the receipt, the duration is 3 days, although the time is slower than the city, Xiaoying still sighs at its convenience. In previous years, she never filled in the express delivery address as her hometown, firstly, she was afraid that she would receive it in ten days and a half month, and secondly, she was worried about losing the piece, but now she found that her worries were superfluous.
"During the Chinese New Year, my husband and father-in-law went to the express distribution point in town every day after lunch, looked for and counted our express delivery, and were busy until after 5 p.m. before returning to the store and putting the express into storage." Yanzi said that their previous main job was to sell grain and oil seasonings and daily necessities in the store.
Why are there so many couriers? Yanzi analyzed, first, rural young people and fashionable old people will shop online, and second, people who work outside will buy some fruits, meat, and nutritional products remotely to their parents in their hometowns.
During this year's Spring Festival, Yanzi and her family stayed in the store, and although there were many more customers buying things than usual, there were more people picking up couriers. She said in an interview with Times Finance that sometimes, her husband shipped more than 1,000 express deliveries.
Yanzi has been a grocery store in the market for many years, and in 2017 began to do express delivery business, at that time, the store delivered up to fifty or sixty express deliveries every day during the Spring Festival, and the rest of the time it was generally only about twenty, which is a huge difference from today's more than a thousand pieces. She is thankful that there are other collection points to share the task.
In the summer of 2020, the Office of the State Post Bureau issued the Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of "Express Delivery to Villages", clarifying that by the end of 2022, eligible constituent villages will basically achieve "express delivery through villages and villages", of which 15 city-level pilots include Huanggang, which belongs to Xishui County.
Before 2022, Yanzi will be responsible for the express delivery business of nearly 10 surrounding villages. In September 2022, the nearby constituent villages successively had express delivery collection points, and every day to Yanzi's shop to transport express delivery, Yanzi directly distributed only two or three express deliveries from the constituent villages.
However, in small grocery stores, people can also conflict with swallows because of the cost of picking up couriers. Swallow charges some couriers a fee of 1 yuan, and if the courier company has a subsidy, it does not charge this fee, "it is impossible to do this for free".
On January 28, the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, many returnees had already set foot back to the city, and Yanzi's grocery store resumed its normal delivery volume, more than 200 pieces a day, and the surrounding villages also returned to tranquility.
Open an online car in the countryside and earn thousands of yuan a day
The mobile internet has also changed rural transportation. In the Spring Festival of 2023, when people returning to their hometowns come to the high-speed railway station in their hometown county, they will find many taxis and private cars waiting here. It looks the same as in previous years, but it's actually different.
Xiaoying told Times Finance that when the Spring Festival was approaching, she came from Shenzhen to the Xishui County High-speed Railway Station, and late at night, the public transportation to her hometown had long been suspended.
"I didn't have much hope at that time, because my home was too remote, too far from the county seat, and it was night, and there could be no order for the return trip, thinking that there was a high probability of taking a black car of one or two hundred yuan. Unexpectedly, less than 10 seconds after placing an order, there was an online car to take the order. ”
In the end, the 11-kilometer ride, the online taxi only charged 34 yuan, sending Xiaoying to the doorstep, which is more convenient than the public minibus. If she takes a public minibus home during the day, she can only get off at an intersection 1.6 kilometers from her home, and then walk for 20 minutes with her luggage in tow.
E-hailing cars directly deliver guests to the village and doorstep Source: Times Finance
Lao Liu, who has been driving an online taxi for four or five years, told Times Finance that living in a village surrounded by farmland and land, people can not only take an online taxi from the city to their doorstep, but also make an appointment in advance to let the online taxi come to the door.
"This year, there are at least two times more ride-hailing than in previous years, and there were only about 100 ride-hailing drivers in previous years, and at least 3400 this year." He analyzed that in 2022, many people will return to their hometowns from big cities to work and choose online ride-hailing businesses.
During the Spring Festival, Lao Liu can sometimes run more than 30 orders a day and earn more than 1,000 yuan. He revealed that in Xishui, the starting price of 6.5 yuan is calculated within two kilometers, and the proportion of platform commission is the same as that of large cities, that is, about 30%.
According to his estimates, his income in January this year could reach more than 10,000 yuan. Usually, he earns about 3,000 yuan a month, which is the average monthly salary level in the small county town of the 18th tier. The old Liu, who is a young man, is more satisfied, saying that this is much higher than the income from farming.
He also mentioned that opening an online car is very free, the threshold is also low, as long as the driving age and car age meet the requirements, someone wants to open an online car, he can also be a referrer, help register an account.
According to the official WeChat public account of the Ministry of Transport, statistics from the national ride-hailing regulatory information interactive platform show that as of December 31, 2022, a total of 5.09 million ride-hailing driver licenses have been issued in various places, an increase of 1.142 million over the same period of the previous year.
(The interviewee in the article is a pseudonym)