Yi WU UPGRADE

Neville Mars

YiWu Upgrade 义乌革新 — the future of an ancient commercial center in rural China

EIGHT WEEK SCHEDULE: theory / analysis / strategic proposal / design development / presentation  

December 21 (Monday 13.00):     project introduction, student introduction, overview, tasks. 
December 24 (Thursday 13.00):   data feedback, delegation analyses, reader assignments. 

December 28 (Thursday 09.00):   YiWu Site Visit! 
December 29 (Thursday 09.00):   urban theory class  
December 29 (Thursday 13.00):   theory workshop / project analysis assignments   

January 05 (Tuesday 13.00):     Analysis Pin-up review! 

January 11 (Monday 13.00):      concept strategy / team integration session   

January 18 (Monday 13.00):      proposal development 

February 15 (Monday 13.00):     Pin-up / proposal review with visiting critics!

February 22 (Monday 13.00):     presentation class / proposal integration  
February 25 (Thursday 13.00):   production 

March 01 (Tuesday 13.00):     FINAL PRESENTATION in YiWu!

yiwu economy

initial articles on Taobao urbanization

“人类正从IT走向DT，只有让别人成功，你才会成功！”
- 马云
Jack Ma's Book on E-commerce

another one on yiwu commerce ..

http://www.nfcmag.com/article/5227.html

yiwu commerce

Initial notes:

Taboo Villages in Yiwu, Zhejiang

Number of Taobao villages (according to Ali Research’s annual report):
2014 - 6 (4 in Jiangdong District, 2 in Choujiang District）

4 of these villages are in the list of the top 10 Taobao villages in Zhejiang (ranked by the numbers of active Taobao online stores):

Qing Yanliu: 2,800 Top 1
Xigu: 860 Top 2
Xiawan: 500 Top 4
Xinwu: 390 Top 8

Annual sum of E-commerce business transaction:

2014 - 3.8 billion RMB

Case study:

Qing Yan Liu village

Original number of villagers: less than 2,000
current residents: over 15,000
number to Taobao online stores: 2,8000
number of delivery companies: over 30

A number of the earliest entrepreneurs who moved to Yiwu have already left due to the increasing rent and competition.

According to Mr.Yu who have been living in Qing Yanliu Village for 8 years, the yearly rent for his 2-room apartment has gone up from 5,000rmb (2008) to 18,000rmb (2015).
The rent for a retail store has gone up from 8,000rmb (2008) to 37,000rmb (2011).

“2-8”structure
In a village like Qing Yanliu, 20% of the sellers keep a firm grip of 80% of the sales.

We assume it won’t be shrinking, with Alibaba's increasing effort to help Taobao villages to grow all around China, there will inevitably be a decentralization of such e-commerce forces. If there will be taobao service stations in every city in Zhejiang where free service and education is provided, there's no need for entrepreneurs to move to a place like Yiwu. It's perhaps becoming the 1st tier Taobao towns/cities where more large-scale E-commerce companies move into E-commerce incubation parks that provide better service and technological support (There's a report on the increasing numbers of such E-commerce parks being built in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong, the three provinces with the highest numbers of Taobao villages).