WeChat E-Commerce, Social Connections, and Smallholder Agriculture Sales Performance: A Survey of Orange Farmers in Hubei Province, China

Di Liu and Pan Wang ()
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Di Liu: College of Economics and Management, Hubei University of Education, Wuhan 430205, China
Pan Wang: Rural Sustainable Development Research Center, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: WeChat is a social media widely used in rural China because of its operability and simplicity. This paper contributes to the role of WeChat in rural e-commerce. Based on 406 orange farmers’ survey data from Hubei Province, China, we used the Heckman model to analyze the factors that influence farmers’ participation in WeChat e-commerce and estimate the impacts of WeChat e-commerce on farmers’ sales performance. We found that information literacy and social connections are important factors affecting farmers’ participation in WeChat e-commerce. WeChat e-commerce has a positive effect on farmers’ sales performance, and the social connections between farmers and consumers can reinforce this effect. Particularly, the beneficial effects are more prominent for farmers with a higher level of Internet development, who operate on a smaller scale, and who are less educated. The results show that WeChat e-commerce improves sales performance mainly by increasing the quantity of sales and the profit rate. These findings will help countries like China to use daily social media to develop rural e-commerce.

Keywords: WeChat; e-commerce; social connections; sales performance; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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