Yunnan Dali "95s" Girl Yan Linying: Selling Garlic on Pinduoduo, Unable to Identify Goods Offline, Becoming Treasure Online Garlic | Father | Yan Linying

In Binchuan County, Dali, Yunnan, purple skin garlic is a local specialty. The skin of fresh garlic is purple red, and after drying, the skin turns light purple. This purple skinned single headed garlic has about three times the content of allicin compared to ordinary garlic.

Single headed garlic has a low yield and small quantity, and rare garlic is more expensive. On the market, ordinary garlic costs about 3 yuan per kilogram, while the most expensive single headed garlic in Binchuan can be sold for 11 yuan per kilogram, which is more than three times the price of ordinary garlic. Don't be fooled by the fact that it has become a treasure now, just three years ago, single headed garlic was still an unsold category in the market.

Yan Linying, a 26 year old girl from Binchuan, was the one who sold the purple skinned garlic to the market. After graduating from college in 2019, she returned to her hometown to start a business for more than three years. She opened a store on the e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, and with just one single product, her sales volume exceeded 7000 tons. At most, she sold over 40000 orders in a day, and her online sales exceeded 50 million yuan.

A single headed garlic drives a chain of industries. In Binchuan, farmers have found a special way to grow single headed garlic, increasing the probability of one acre of real estate single headed garlic from about 20% to about 80%. The value of each acre of real estate is much higher than before, and farmers are not worried about selling their garlic, and their wallets are also bulging.

How can the once inconspicuous garlic in the mountains transform into a star fruit that can become rich? "The road out of the mountains is actually very bumpy," Yan Linying said. Thanks to the help of e-commerce, the single headed garlic has been given "wings" to fly over the mountains and directly onto people's dining tables.

E-commerce assistance, garlic "flies" out of the mountains

At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 came suddenly. At that time, it was the season when Binchuan garlic began to go public, and buyers from other regions were unable to enter, causing local garlic to stagnate.

Yan Linying's father, Yan Bijun, is a veteran in the garlic industry. Initially, he worked as a proxy collector for over 5 years. In 2008, when the garlic business was just starting to take off, Yan Bijun teamed up with 5 local villagers to establish an agricultural cooperative and distributed dividends annually based on the contribution rate of the members. In a good year, the cooperative distributes dividends exceeding one million yuan.

Yan Bijun's offline market sales channels are stable, and garlic from Binchuan is sold to Guangzhou, Guiyang, and Kunming. However, under the influence of the COVID-19, it is difficult for the "veteran" to use various means. Yan Linying was taking online classes at home and suggested opening a store on Pinduoduo to give it a try.

In Binchuan, Dali, workers are drying single headed garlic. Photo by Zhu Feng

In fact, locals have also opened online stores to sell garlic, but sales have always been low. In the summer of 2019, Yan Linying also tried, but because she didn't know how to operate, she could only sell a few scattered orders every day. Yan Bijun watched his daughter act as a customer service representative, packing and shipping her own products. He always felt that e-commerce sales could not become a success. "How much can you sell in these small boxes? I can't sell as much as a trailer in a month.".

Under the pressure of the situation, opening a new store, "I didn't understand anything at first, but fortunately, the opening process of Pinduoduo was relatively simple.". After the school resumed classes, Yan Linying secretly went to an e-commerce company in Kunming to intern and worked as an operations assistant for nearly three months. At the same time, she takes e-commerce courses through various channels, and the official Pinduoduo platform also provides some training opportunities. However, when his father learned about this, he became a bit angry and said, "Why did you still learn to skip classes?"

Learning while Practicing - On e-commerce platforms, images are the first impression that people give, and should be carefully crafted to reflect the quality and characteristics of the product; You can pay attention to the use of descriptive keywords. The largest fruit king has a smaller number, and the "scarcity" should be highlighted more prominently

However, in her first year of returning to her hometown to start an e-commerce business, although Yan Linying successfully opened a gap, she has not made much breakthroughs, and her ranking on the platform has always hovered around the "waist", with the core issue being product prices.

"I know that Pinduoduo is watching advertisements on TV." Yan Linying learned that Pinduoduo started in agriculture and created a new agricultural product supply chain through "agricultural land cloud integration", becoming the largest agricultural product upstream platform in China. She tried and found that most of Pinduoduo's consumers are young women who value both quality of life and know how to get by. When shopping online, they have high requirements for cost-effectiveness.

However, Yan Bijun has been operating in the offline market for many years, placing great importance on the profit of each order and refusing to lower the price. In order to prevent his daughter from changing prices without authorization, Yan Bijun often opens his daughter's store and checks every link.

"Similarly, for garlic, e-commerce does not have an intermediate distribution link, so the price is much cheaper than in the offline market." Yan Linying said, "Unlike traditional models, the logic of e-commerce is to have small profits and quick sales. After sales increase, the later profits are considerable." She repeatedly communicated with her father but was unsuccessful. In the second half of 2020, due to the higher price of garlic compared to others, sales remained stagnant.

"Seeing other merchants selling so enthusiastically on the platform, Yan Bijun slowly began to think about his daughter's words." At a critical moment, Yan Bijun changed his mind in a timely manner. In the Spring Festival of 2021, Yan Linying immediately lowered the price of garlic, and the effect was immediate. The daily order volume of the store exceeded 40000, and the daily sales exceeded 50 tons. In addition, with the support of high traffic from Pinduoduo, there are also specialized traffic attraction activities every season. After half a year, the store's sales have far exceeded the offline market.

Seeing the power of e-commerce, Yan Bijun began to shift the focus of garlic's channels to e-commerce platforms. In order to adapt to the new sales model, he also reformed the traditional intermediate process of garlic acquisition.

In previous years, whenever Binchuan garlic was listed, vendors from all over the country flocked to collect garlic from villagers at low prices, then resell it at a higher price to earn the middle price difference. Yan Bijun had also frequently purchased garlic from vendors before. Later, Yan Bijun changed his strategy and established three procurement teams to personally purchase garlic in the fields, in order to eliminate the price difference in the middle. "By saving a little bit at each stage, the cost will come down. This way, villagers can sell more money, and consumers can also save more money, benefiting both ends," said Yan Bijun.

Since then, the local garlic has never dropped in price and there has never been any unsold situation again.

Dali Binchuan's unique garlic sold a piece of "Xintiandi" through Pinduoduo. Photo by Zhu Feng

Rare single headed garlic offline, popular online

Online sales have opened up, but for Yan Bijun, selling single headed garlic is still a major concern. The recognition of single headed garlic in the offline market has never been high, and many people feel that they have never seen it, let alone tasted it.

In fact, single headed garlic is not a specialized variety. When grown, garlic can grow into either single headed garlic or multi petal garlic. Usually, for 1 acre of garlic, the probability of producing single headed garlic is around 20%. Selling single headed garlic has always been a challenge in the industry.

Previously, local offline channels used to sell dried garlic, which was usually divided into three sizes: large, medium, and small. On the market, medium sized single headed garlic with a diameter of 2.8 to 3.5 centimeters is relatively easy to sell, selling for 7.5 yuan per kilogram. The other two specifications are not easy to sell, especially the large single headed garlic with a diameter of over 3.5 centimeters and the size of an egg. After processing and drying large fresh garlic, the wrinkled skin does not sell well, and the skin is also thick. Yan Bijun often worries and makes phone calls everywhere to request dealers to take him away. The selling price is also about one yuan lower than the medium one per kilogram.

"We can't sell it in the offline market, why don't we try it online?" Yan Linying thought to herself. At that time, single headed garlic was a very rare category on e-commerce platforms, with only one or two small stores selling it and low sales.

After all, it was a unwanted item in the market. Yan Linying lowered the price to the lowest and sold it in the form of fresh garlic. Unexpectedly, the first batch of single headed garlic sold out quickly. For a period of time, there were too many large fruits left in the market, so we placed all the orders and sent them out. Consumer feedback was very good. It was spicy, easy to peel, and pleasant looking. Some consumers said: "It's white and fat, like Xiaolongbao."

Large scale fresh garlic not only caters to the demand of online customers for fresh and large agricultural products, but also avoids the trouble of selling dry garlic differently. Moreover, fresh garlic in northern regions is usually launched from May to June, while fresh garlic in Binchuan County is launched from January to May, which coincides with the launch time of fresh garlic in northern regions. Yan Linying seized the tender and bright characteristics of fresh garlic for video promotion, and even made many different eating methods into videos and posted them on the store's homepage. The difficult to sell large single headed garlic suddenly became popular.

Yan Linying stayed at home to take online classes and tried opening an online store to sell garlic. Photo by Li Xinmin

How can small garlic be sold? The diameter of small single headed garlic is generally between 2 centimeters and 2.8 centimeters, and Yan Linying gave them a pleasant name - Pearl Garlic. Pearl garlic has always been unpopular due to the hassle of peeling. But when analyzing the backend data, Yan Linying found that there is a peak of buying garlic before the Laba Festival every year. Yan Linying recommends pearl garlic to customers in the form of soaking garlic.

Yan Linying was pleasantly surprised to find that single headed garlic is more suitable for e-commerce compared to other fruits and vegetables. The single headed garlic itself is a sphere, with thick skin, which is resistant to falling and putting. During the packaging process, there is no need to add so many packaging materials, and a box can be pulled away when it is full. In order to prevent bumping, other fruits may need to add trays, foam, nets, etc. The single headed garlic sold has a high praise rate, and the after-sales problems that need to be solved and the cost of re investing in after-sales are relatively low.

Yan Linying learned about the specific needs of consumers through Pinduoduo's backend sales big data, and thus changed the local single garlic sales method, focusing on differentiated sales strategies. Now, fresh garlic is sold online from January to May, with a focus on big fruits; Selling dried garlic from June to December, mainly selling medium and small fruits. We also subdivide the single headed garlic into 7 specifications to meet the different needs of customers. Yan Linying's store sales have grown rapidly. In January 2021, she sold a record of over 40000 orders in one day, with a daily sales revenue of over 1.6 million yuan.

The single garlic sells a piece of "Xintiandi" by putting together a lot. The growers also learn to plant in a standardized and standardized way, and separate the multi clove garlic and the single garlic. The single garlic is no longer an "incidental" product. Compared to ordinary multi petal garlic, single headed garlic is relatively difficult to grow. The cultivation method of multi petal garlic is called point planting, while the cultivation method of single headed garlic is called sowing. The key to sowing is to precisely control the planting density. Spread the seeds evenly and quickly arrange the appropriate spacing for the seeds. If the spacing is too large, it can easily grow into multiple cloves of garlic, while if the spacing is too small, it can affect the size of single headed garlic.

Yan Linying sold the large single headed garlic for 7 yuan per kilogram, which is 50 cents higher than the previous price per kilogram of dried garlic. Other peers have also followed suit, and the difficult to sell large single headed garlic has become a hot commodity. The purchase price for growers has also increased.

In Binchuan, growers have figured out a special way to plant single headed garlic, increasing the probability of one acre of real estate single headed garlic from about 20% to about 80%. The value of each acre of real estate is much higher than before, and their wallets have also increased accordingly.

Gathering sand makes a tower, and the garlic industry takes another step forward

On Pinduoduo's garlic best-selling list, Yan Linying's family accounts for seven or eight of the top 20 products. The purple skin garlic category garlic ranking list includes 7 stores operated by Yan Linying, which are almost on the list for the whole year. It can be said that Yan Linying has achieved the first place in the garlic category of Pinduoduo.

But she doesn't stop here. With Pinduoduo as the core position, Yan Linying has the confidence to further expand her territory, form multi-channel sales, and further establish the brand of Binchuan Purple Skin Single Head Garlic.

In Yan Linying's memory, when she was a child, her house often leaked rain, but her father ignored it and instead borrowed money to buy a "big brother" and a motorcycle. "At that time, I really didn't understand, but now I realize that he was running business, and the most important thing in running business is efficiency," said Yan Linying.

In the sorting workshop, workers are sorting the purchased garlic. Photo by Zhu Feng

The store's order volume has skyrocketed, putting great pressure on shipping. Yan Linying was also fined for exceeding the packaging capacity and delivery time according to platform regulations. She reflected on this and realized that the efficiency of backend sorting and packaging is crucial. In order to ensure timely delivery, Yan Linying introduced the first fully automatic assembly line in the local area that integrates garlic sorting, sealing, and labeling. It can carry a daily garlic sorting task of 50 tons, which not only improves efficiency but also further reduces labor costs in the middle.

In addition, "the head is a very easy to ignore the details". Yan Linying said that single-headed garlic is often checked by hand and the naked eye can distinguish the size. The size of garlic picked out in this way is quite different. "The big fruit may be the size of an egg or the size of a table tennis ball". Fruit appearance quality is not standard, uneven, after-sales problems may increase. Yan Linying also introduced special machines, which were graded to millimeter size. The machine is also equipped with a tilting bucket, which uses vibration to initially clean the mud carried on the garlic.

Last year, an e-commerce anchor approached Yan Linying and asked if she could supply garlic. The garlic sold through a link in the live broadcast room was shipped directly from the warehouse. Yan Linying calculated for herself, "The prices they sell are very attractive, with a larger profit margin. The four members of the live streaming team earn more money in a day than the ten members of the company earn.".

Yan Linying thought for a moment and said, "Live streaming can also be done by our source manufacturers." She embarked on a journey of learning again, searching for training classes everywhere to learn about the rules of the live streaming industry.

"Live streaming is a real person, real real-time live streaming, with different states every minute, and this change has a great impact on the live streaming effect." Yan Linying initially livestreamed live, but ran into the garlic field, where the sunlight was too dazzling and the quality of the garlic could not be displayed through the camera; Running to the foot of the mountain, there is no signal, and sometimes the wind is too loud, which can be harsh when transmitted through the microphone, making the anchor's voice not loud enough. The anchor is very hardworking, exposed to wind, rain, and sun. They have to deliver their meals to the fields, and if they want to use the restroom, they have to look for places everywhere. Yan Linying struggled for a while, upgrading her equipment to indoor live streaming with a green screen background.

At present, Yan Linying's live streaming store has over 500000 followers across the entire platform.

Yan Bijun suggested that his daughter establish an "e-commerce entrepreneurship park", create a separate area in her own warehouse, transform it into an office space, and provide local young people with office equipment and garlic supply, allowing them to do it themselves. The profits can even be maximized by young people. "Our local e-commerce foundation is not bad, with over 200 members registered with the E-commerce Association, of which more than two-thirds are '90s generation' merchants." Yan Linying has learned about the situation, but most merchants have limited scale.

"I am very lucky to stand on my father's shoulder, and the starting point of entrepreneurship is relatively high." Yan Linying said, and the next step is to integrate supply chain resources, collaborate with young people's operational technology, and join the army of e-commerce entrepreneurship, so as to take the garlic industry in Binchuan to another level.