In Xiqianbo, a village in Suning, a county in Hebei Province in north China, Chen Lei, secretary of the village's Communist Party of China branch, has been guiding villagers to sell their fishing rods online since 2014.
In 2017, the total sales of the villagers' stores on Taobao, an online business platform owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, surpassed 10 million yuan ($1.5 million). That year, the village was recognized as a Taobao Village by AliResearch, Alibaba's research institute.