JD.com: Using e-commerce to alleviate rural poverty in china

Abstract

JD.com is one of China’s largest e-commerce companies, capturing more than a quarter of the country’s $600 billion B2C market in 2017. It is seeking to become one of the world’s most trusted companies and is working with local farmers’ cooperatives, the Chinese, and a local internet business owner to create a programme called Running Chicken to source free-range chickens at scale from low-income farmers in Wuyi County in northern Hebei Province. JD buys chickens at three times the average market price provided that strict standards are adhered to and monitored. The result has been increased farmer incomes that have raised hundreds of families out of poverty and removed Wuyi County from the national poverty list. Pilots are underway to replicate the programme in other poverty-stricken counties of China.