Connecting to bring agricultural products to e-commerce platforms

Searching for opportunities, expanding markets

With the goal of helping businesses, cooperatives, establishments and agricultural households have more opportunities to find and expand consumption markets as well as promote their products and brands to domestic and foreign consumers, recently, the province has paid special attention to promoting e-commerce.

According to Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development - Nguyen Thanh Truyen, e-commerce trading platforms have opened up opportunities for agricultural products to reach domestic and international markets. Cooperatives with production and processing chains will have a large market and will be advantageous in finding partners. At the same time, e-commerce floors are not limited in terms of promotion and images of products, sellers proactively put their products on the floor. Buyers and sellers transact themselves online, and the money is also paid via account, limited use of cash.

Provincial products on the Postmart e-commerce platform

In the coming time, the province's goal is to expand the agricultural product consumption market, promote e-commerce transactions, and develop non-cash payments; support people to consume agricultural products on e-commerce platforms; promote rapid consumption of agricultural products during peak harvest season, helping farmers maintain product prices and avoid dependence on intermediaries.

In addition, through e-commerce and digital platforms, agricultural households can find useful information such as agricultural markets, demand forecasts and agricultural production capacity, weather, seasons, seeds, fertilizer, etc.

Notably, in order to promote the development of commodity agricultural production, agricultural and rural digital economy, the Provincial People's Committee issued the provincial e-commerce development plan for the period 2021-2025 to connect, promote and introduce products, expand agricultural product consumption markets. Along with that, the Provincial People's Committee proposed practical solutions to support agricultural households opening shops on e-commerce platforms.

Enterprises, cooperatives and establishments in the province also actively participate in e-commerce platforms to exchange, buy, sell and build websites to promote brands and products.

Phuoc Hiep Fresh Vegetable Cooperative (Phuoc Hau commune, Can Giuoc district) specializes in producing vegetables and fruits, of which vegetables are the main product. Director of the cooperative - Tran Thanh Minh shared that at first, they did not grasp the sales and promotion process, and encountered many difficulties in selling products. However, with the support of functional sectors, they actively participate in trade fairs to find partners. In addition to distributing through traditional channels, the cooperative also promotes online sales, putting products on e-commerce platforms, helping the products become well-known to many people.

Workers of Phuoc Hiep Fresh Vegetable Cooperative (Long Hau commune, Can Giuoc district) processing vegetables

Particularly for agricultural production households, currently, the provincial functional sectors request the People's Committees of districts, towns and cities to coordinate with the Provincial Post Office, Viettel, and e-commerce platforms to organize dissemination, training digital skills; support connecting agricultural production households with e-commerce platforms to guide participation in transactions.

Along with that, functional sectors proactively provide crop information, harvest and farming output, harvest time for e-commerce platforms; guide agricultural production households to put products on e-commerce platforms; Develop documents to guide agricultural households to register accounts and put products on e-commerce platforms in many different forms.

According to the Department of Industry and Trade, there are currently 51 booths registered with 485 products displayed on e-commerce platforms. In particular, the Department has supported 20 businesses to bring the province's products to 6 major domestic e-commerce platforms: Tiki, Sendo, Lazada, Shopee, Voso and Postmart, support 6 businesses to bring products to the Alibaba e-commerce platform.

In addition, the Department coordinates with the Provincial Post Office and Viettel to support agricultural and business households, cooperatives, businesses, etc in the province to promote their images, develop products and brands online on e-commerce platforms (https://postmart.vn, https://voso.vn). To date, there are 63,244 organizations and individuals selling on these two e-commerce platforms with 7,653 registered products.

The Department also introduces and promotes typical products and OCOP products of the province through Zalo and Facebook groups; builds traceability software for typical products of the province (16 businesses have participated with 45 products); coordinates with agencies of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to organize many digital transformation conferences in commercial events; promotes export through e-commerce, etc for businesses and cooperatives in the province; supports 24 businesses, cooperatives, and production facilities to build online brands (building websites, fanpages, landing pages, emails, etc) for promote products.

Many positive signs

According to statistics from the Department of Industry and Trade, in the first 6 months of 2023, there were 968 booths selling the province's products on the two e-commerce  Shopee and Sendo (Shopee with 887 booths, Sendo with 81 booths). Total revenue from the two platforms is 55.5 billion VND (Shopee is about 55 billion VND, Sendo is about 500 million VND).

The products on the domestic e-commerce platforms are mainly processed agricultural products, sausages, fish sauce of all kinds, etc. The products on the Alibaba platform are the province's strong agricultural products such as rice, lemon, dragon fruit, banana, etc.

The Department of Industry and Trade supports putting products on Alibaba platform in many ways such as maintaining Alibaba.com Global Gold membership for 12 months; supporting account management package for each participating unit for 3 months; creating images, videos, and digitize display products of participating units; designing the general identity of the participating units' booths.

These supports help businesses and cooperatives do business effectively on e-commerce platforms, helping agricultural products that are difficult to access e-commerce due to storage, transportation conditions, etc have initial success. For example, at My Thanh Agricultural Cooperative (Thu Thua district), the cooperative's revenue through e-commerce platform Sendo increased rapidly after only a few months of joining.

The delegation from Tien Giang province learns to scan QR codes posted on products of My Thanh Agricultural Cooperative, Thu Thua district (photo provided by cooperative)

Director of My Thanh Agricultural Cooperative - Nguyen Quoc Cuong said that in parallel with maintaining traditional sales channels, the cooperative promotes product promotion and goods transactions on e-commerce platforms, initially bringing positive efficiency.

“Compared to traditional consumption methods, online sales channels through e-commerce platforms have opened up new opportunities, helping cooperatives, businesses and farmer households introduce products to consumers across the regions. This consumption method is very suitable and highly effective. Currently, the cooperative's monthly revenue through Sendo is about 200 million VND" - Mr. Nguyen Quoc Cuong said.

Products of My Thanh Agricultural Cooperative, Thu Thua district on the province's e-commerce platform

Deputy Director of Department of Industry and Trade - Chau Thi Le informed: "In the coming time, the Department will continue to implement the province's e-commerce development plan for the period 2021-2025, supporting and promoting the widespread application of e-commerce in businesses and the community; building a healthy, competitive and sustainable e-commerce market; promoting training activities, human resource development, electronic traceability, etc. In 2023, the Department continues to support businesses, cooperatives, production and business establishments to bring products to 3 domestic e-commerce platforms (Sendo, Voso, Postmart) and 1 foreign e-commerce platform (Alibaba)".

With determination and efforts, the promotion of e-commerce in agricultural product consumption has been bringing positive result, helping businesses, cooperatives, production and business establishments, and agricultural production households solve the problem of output./.

By Bui Tung - Translated by Q. Thien

Source:https://baolongan.vn/ket-noi-dua-nong-san-len-san-thuong-mai-dien-tu-a164155.html