Ministry of Commerce: In 2017, the national rural online retail sales reached 1244.88 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 39.1%

In recent years, with the expansion of e-commerce into rural areas, rural online retail has developed better and better.

According to preliminary statistics, the online retail sales in rural areas reached RMB 1,244.88 billion in 2017, a year-on-year increase of 39.1%. By the end of 2017, there were 9.856 million online stores in rural areas, an increase of 1.693 million from 2016, a year-on-year increase of 20.7%, creating more than 28 million jobs.

The online retail sales of physical products in rural areas reached RMB 782.66 billion, up 35.1% year-on-year, accounting for 62.9% of the total online retail sales in rural areas. Among them, clothing, shoes and bags, home decoration and home furnishings, and food and health care ranked the top three, reaching RMB 160.03 billion, RMB 112.95 billion, and RMB 103.1 billion, up 30.5%, 6.4%, and 61% year-on-year, respectively.

Online retail sales of rural service products reached 462.22 billion yuan, up 46.6% year-on-year, accounting for 37.1% of the total rural online retail sales. Among them, online travel, online catering, and life services ranked the top three, reaching 183.19 billion yuan, 162.58 billion yuan, and 18.07 billion yuan, up 66.8%, 58.6%, and 45.3% year-on-year, respectively. Online travel and online catering performed particularly well, contributing 21% and 17.2% to the growth of rural online retail sales, respectively, ranking first and second among all 19 categories of rural online retail.

In terms of regional distribution, in 2017, the online retail sales in rural areas of the eastern, central, western and northeastern regions were 790.45 billion yuan, 256.21 billion yuan, 170.05 billion yuan and 28.18 billion yuan, respectively, up 33.4%, 46.2%, 55.4% and 60.9% year-on-year. Among them, the online retail sales in rural areas of the eastern region accounted for 63.5%, and the advantage was still obvious. The online retail sales in rural areas of the central, western and northeastern regions totaled 454.44 billion yuan, up 50.4% year-on-year, 17 percentage points higher than the growth rate in rural areas of the eastern region.

In terms of major products, food and health care products are the physical products that contribute the most to the growth of online retail sales in rural areas of central, western and northeastern China, with contribution rates of 11.5%, 30.3% and 29% respectively. Online travel is the service product that contributes the most to the growth of online retail sales in rural areas of central and western China, with contribution rates of 30.8% and 24.3% respectively. Online catering is the service product that contributes the most to the growth of online retail sales in rural areas of northeastern and eastern China, with contribution rates of 14.2% and 17.9% respectively. Clothing, shoes and bags are the physical products that contribute the most to the growth of online retail sales in rural areas of eastern China, with a contribution rate of 16.8%.

In 2017, the 832 national-level poverty-stricken counties in the country achieved online retail sales of 120.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 52.1%, 13 percentage points higher than the rural growth rate.