by Vivian YangMore than 160,000 “Suqian Hairy Crabs” were sold on JD.com in less than three weeks during the first Harvest Carnival and Shopping Festival of Agricultural Specialties this September. Suqian, a humble city in northern Jiangsu province, is blessed with variegated waters including the Hongze and Luoma lakes. These lakes are perfect breeding homes for hairy crabs, but their marketability has long been curbed by conditions including scattered raisers, varying quality resulting in the undercutting of purchasing prices, and weak branding. To tackle these hurdles and build up a local specialty image, the Suqian Rural Bureau joined hands with JD.com in early 2021. Thanks to all these efforts, during last year’s Singles’ Day Grand Promotion, sales of Suqian hairy crabs increased 600 times YoY; and that of the whole year rose by 173 times.

Source: Forbes October 14, 2022 13:06 UTC