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

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.