Chinese people are amazingly entrepreneurial and savvy business thinkers. Even on my way to the subway to catch the train to the airport at 5am in the morning in Beijing, I saw the local street food vendors already preparing in the freezing cold – respect.
I just watched this interesting CNN video report called “The Chinese town the internet built” about a small village called QingYan in Yiwu where many of its residents have created profitable and flexible businesses off the Taobao e-commerce platform.
One lady sits at small desk in front of a small computer surrounded by a sea of products stacked in organized chaos. She claims to have received 3,000 orders a day sometimes and says business is growing every year. Another man says he returned from Shanghai as running a Taobao business gives him more freedom and flexibility. The report shows people busily running around filling bags of orders and hauling them onto trucks or bikes to deliver them.
It’s not the first story I’ve heard about but it’s good to see new one’s emerging. It’s great to see Taobao being used as a platform to help people’s lives.