Society

Students devote holidays to online business

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-07-31 16:17

Mao Changqin, a student engaging in e-commerce, shows delivery invoices of his online store on a single business day in his office at Yiwu Industry and Commerce Vocational College in Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province, July 29, 2010. [Xinhua]

BEIJING - Although a better half of the summer vacation has passed, many students of Yiwu Industry and Commerce Vocational College still stay on their campus, busy contacting and bargaining with customers of their online stores on taobao.com.

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Four online-business-founding classes have been set up since last September in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province. At present, more than 1,200 students of the college do businesses through Taobao, so that several delivery companies opened business offices on the campus to provide services for them.

According to the college authorities, more than 60 percent of their students are able to cover their living expenses by part time jobs, the income of which totaled over 25 million yuan (around $3.68 million).

Taking full advantage of fast development of online business and abundant commodities produced in Yiwu, the college plans to combine the online business founding education with their vocational training programs, in order to provide "online business professionals" for local economy.

The booming e-commerce in China has been changing people's lifestyle rapidly. Some young people are so enthusiastic on online shopping that they buy almost everything through online stores.

According to the latest statistics issued by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the population of e-commerce users reaches 142 million as of the end of June this year, which means over one third Chinese internet users or one tenth Chinese do shopping online, more than 30 percent increase than that of last year.

Abruptly developed online retail trade brings more job opportunities in China. Taobao, China's largest online auction website, announced in May that 1.06 million people work for online stores on its website.

However, the vocation is more preferable by the youths. For example, half of the businessmen of Taobao are between the age of 20 and 32, among whom quite a number of recent grads open online stores as an online business founder.