Alibaba Brings eCommerce Training To Rural China

Alibaba is holding tight to its focus on spurring eCommerce growth across rural China.

The eCommerce giant’s latest move in the rural parts of the country involves providing training to a million teenagers throughout the regions that will equip them to begin their own online ventures, The New York Times reported Tuesday (March 15).

According to Xinhua news agency, the company reached an agreement with the China Communist Youth League to support teens with funding, training and partnership initiatives. Ant Financial, the financial arm of Alibaba Holding Group, said it will invest 1 billion yuan ($153 million) to help college graduates looking to return to a vast number of the rural areas in China to start businesses.

The Xinhua news agency also said that, throughout villages in remote areas, service stations have been established to help those without the vital skills needed to trade online, NYT said. Villagers can also use the stations to go online, order goods and then come back days later to pick them up.

While Alibaba has discussed the importance of targeting rural China for some time, in recent months, the company has been seen putting more stake into the concept.

As a Wall Street Journal article referenced back in August, Alibaba and its smaller rival, JD.com, have invested more in logistics by partnering with companies that can help get more of its goods to rural towns. Alibaba and JD.com combined have an 80 percent share of China’s eCommerce market (roughly $440 billion). And the goal, WSJ noted, was to hit 100,000 villages by the end of 2020.

“The scale of online shopping in rural areas is still lower than in the cities, so there’s a huge space to unearth, a big market that can be fought for,” Wang Xiaoxing, an eCommerce analyst at research firm Analysys International, told WSJ.