Recently interviewed by @protocol on our paper on rural e-commerce. To my dismay, the article sends the message that rural e-commerce only benefits the platform and not the villagers. The conclusion in no way represents the essence of the interview 1/n https://bit.ly/2PrSzp4 

Important parts of the interview are omitted in their article. I detail those omissions here in order to paint an accurate picture of our paper (2/n)

Poverty alleviation ISN’T just about selling but also about buying. Getting access to more, cheaper, and better products raises the purchasing power of villagers. With the same amount of money, rural households can now buy more. (3/n)

It is INACCURATE for @protocol to conclude that rural e-commerce programs benefit only the platform but not the villagers (4/n)

E.g., 62% of goods bought through e-commerce were not available in the village prior to the Rural Taobao Project. For goods that are available both online & offline, e-commerce is 15% cheaper (median). Villagers can also get products now within the village rather...(5/n)

than commuting for hours to nearby towns/cities (6/n)

We do hope to see more selling, but naturally, selling is more difficult to promote than buying via e-commerce. Selling is particularly difficult in rural areas due to the lack of human capital and technical know-how. (7/n)

Moreover, agricultural products are more difficult to sell than durables (e.g., clothes), because they are non-standardized, easily perishable, and more difficult to transport. (8/n)

Our main takeaway is to be careful about the hype around “e-commerce villages“-certain rural villages can sell a lot via e-commerce but they are not representative of the general rural population.Instead, rural e-commerce is more likely to RAISE WELFARE via buying but not selling

To foster online selling in rural areas, we need more than e-commerce access. Complementary services (business training, access to credit, promotion) have to be in place to trigger widespread, positive change.(10/n)

Lastly, the paper isn’t about one platform company or one particular program. Rather, it uses the program setting to study where e-commerce is likely to foster rural welfare and where it needs additional interventions. (11/n)

Development programs are difficult to carry out. Transformation may not take place in short and medium terms. (12/n)

Plus, these rural e-commerce programs are fast evolving. Our findings are unlikely to be the last words on rural e-commerce, but they help inform where to invest to maximize welfare (e.g., in logistics and in more remote villages) and what hurdles to overcome (e.g., selling).