A livestreamer promotes tea in Songyang county. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

Songyang county – administered by Lishui city in East China's Zhejiang province – has in recent years been promoting the development of e-commerce, especially in its tea sector.

In 2020, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, Yi Lingjian and his family began to broadcast live in Songyang's tea market. At that time, the livestreaming, packaging, delivery and after-sales service were all conducted by himself and his parents. 

After two years of development, he now has more than 40 employees and has moved his office from a small warehouse behind the tea market to the local e-commerce park. 

"Now our monthly sales are around 400,000 yuan ($61,525) to 500,000 yuan," Yi said.

To further help the local e-commerce grow, Songyang also upgraded its urban and rural e-commerce logistics distribution system – integrating the resources of 12 express companies – to realize full coverage of logistics in all its administrative villages. 

According to the latest data released by the Department of Commerce of Zhejiang Province, in the first quarter of the year, Songyang's online retail sales reached 1.52 billion yuan, up 84.9 percent year-on-year.

That growth rate ranked it first in the province during the period.