Mind Your Own e-Business! More job hunters start business careers on the Internet

By Yuan Yuan

More job hunters start business careers on the Internet

Starting a business used to be quite a hassle—renting an office or warehouse,hiring employees and bringing together enough capital to purchase goods and equipment. But today, the only startup capital a person needs is a computer and an Internet connection.

Xiao Lili, a sophomore at Peking University,opened an online shop on Taobao.com, China’s largest online customer-to-customer platform,in March.

“I was just curious how easy it would be to start the business,” Xiao said.

Xiao spent a mere 1,000-yuan ($163) for a deposit to open her online shop.

And that’s how Xiao started her business.Her cousin, who studies in the United States,mails cosmetics to Xiao. Besides Taobao, Xiao resells them on a university bulletin board system.

“I have to go to classes every day and deal with school. I don’t have enough time to make more money,” said Xiao, who makes about 1,000 yuan per month on her cosmetics business. “It puts a squeeze on my time, but I am happy with the money and it is enough to cover basic expenses.”

Online entrepreneurs

More college students in China are looking to online retailing for business opportunities amid a harsh employment situation. About 7 million new graduates entered the job market in 2013,competing among themselves and with other peer groups for only 9 million vacant employment positions.

Ten years ago, the number of job vacancies outnumbered new graduates 4-1. Today’s graduates are far less certain of their job prospects.

STOCKED UP: Online shop owner Yuan Xiaoping checks inventory of clothes and shoes in her warehouse, a bedroom in a rented apartment in Changsha,Hunan Province, on July 21

Wang Jiaqiang, a 23-year-old graduate from Zhejiang Science and Technology University,opened an online shop in 2011 selling boxes. It started as a hobby, as his father runs a factory in his hometown and provides boxes at a very low cost.

Wang never thought of making a career of it until his hobby’s annual trade volume reached 15 million yuan ($2.45 million) in 2012 with about 30,000 clients nationwide. His father has acknowledged the power of the Internet. Now this online shop has become an important sales channel for the factory.

“I feel lucky and proud to have my own business and support of my family,” Wang said.“Normally, parents consider online business to be informal and unreliable.”

Eighty percent of shopkeepers on Taobao were born between 1981 and 1994, according to a joint survey in 2012 by Peking University and Ali Research, a research arm of Taobao’s operator Alibaba Group.

“In the past there were two types of jobs that graduates considered ideal—stable jobs in government or state-owned enterprises, or wellpaying jobs with big transnational corporations or financial institutions,” said Chen Yu, Director of the China Institute for Occupation Research at Peking University. “However, for young people today, starting their own business seems to be another attractive career path.”

Nie Yurong, a 24-year-old clothing designer, created her own clothes brand Uare with a small team. Its total trade volume reached 1 million yuan ($163,000) in 2012 and Nie is preparing to open her first physical retail store. In order to concentrate on her business, she refused an offer from a university in London.

“For startups, Taobao is a very good place to begin because it doesn’t ask for a business plan or startup money and everybody can do it,” said Chen Shousong, an analyst at the Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. “Taobao also has a fully- fledged business system for advertising, payment and customer service, all of which make it easier for startups.”

An Internet business boom has helped create more than 10 million jobs in China, which greatly alleviates current employment pressure,according to a report released in February by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

It said that young people made up the majority of those involved in Internet entrepreneurship, including online shop owners and employees, as well as practitioners in areas closely related to e-commerce.

“The Internet goes beyond physical restrictions, so our power can be magnified to an enormous scale,” Li Xueling, founder and CEO of NASDAQ-listed social media platform company YY Inc., told People’s Daily.

Li said that the Internet accelerates the process of trial and error in entrepreneurship, citing the example of a college graduate who became a millionaire by teaching others how to make PowerPoint presentations online.

Wang Xiaobang, a 36-year-old farmer from Zhangjiagou village in north China’s Shanxi Province, opened his online shop in 2008 after spending six years as a migrant worker in Beijing.He sells local agricultural produce and nets an average of 80,000 yuan ($13,000) a month.

“Now I am convinced that the online market is really huge and the Internet can play a big role in the countryside,” said Wang Xiaobang,who also hired local villagers to help him expand his online business.

In east China’s Zhejiang Province,Qingyanliu village in Yiwu is known as “China’s largest e-commerce village” as it is home to many farmers like Wang Xiaobang. Farmers in Qingyanliu alone operate about 2,000 online shops and 20 express delivery companies to transport goods all over China.

According to a report from the Information Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the number of farmers choosing to hawk products via the Internet reached 1.71 million at the end of 2011.

HOME SHOP: Twentythree-year-old Jiang Yuan photographs clothes in her home on December 11,2012 to be put on sale in her online shop

No paradise

Yuan Xiaoping, 27, is a manager of Atongniushe,an online shop based in Changsha, capital city of central China’s Hunan Province. Yuan joined the shop in 2009 as a customer service assistant. “The work pressure is huge. We don’t have fixed hours, so if a customer pops up with a question online, we have to be there,” said Yuan, revealing the pressure has only increased after she became the manager.

Renovated from a three-bedroom apartment, the shop now has more than 30 employees. “The rooms are all packed and all the work is connected with computers,” said Yuan. “Many of the employees have gradually become near-sighted and have severe neck pain due to staring at the computer screen for long periods of time.”

“It is a good time and it is also a bad time,”said Du Ziju, an early adopter who opened a clothing shop on Taobao in 2005. “With the low threshold and harsher competition, it is difficult to make money. We have to work very hard to update the sales list and negotiate a lot to find cheaper suppliers. It is very exhausting.With more and more offline retailers initiating e-commerce on Taobao, it is becoming more difficult for startups to succeed.”

Yu Bingbing, a 23-year-old graduate from Hebei Normal University, recently opened an online shop selling suitcases. “Although we don’t need to pay for opening the shop, we still need money for the goods, which is not a small amount for my shop,” said Yu, who revealed she borrowed money from parents and relatives.

On July 24, Hebei Province began providing preferential policies to online startups. College students opening online business within two years of graduation can get a 5,000-yuan ($817)subsidy per person if they can maintain a stable business for six months.

The Zhejiang Provincial Government on July 28 also announced a series of preferential policies, including no-interest loans and subsidies,to encourage college graduates to start online businesses. Moreover, training courses guiding students to start businesses will be included in local college curriculums.

“It is a very small number, but at least we see that online business is becoming more accepted and regulated, which is a good sign for us,” said Yu. ■