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| Wu Jingjing sells goods on Wechat. [Photo by Zhang Yun/chinanews.com] |
Wu Jingjing, born to a rich family in North China's Shanxi province, saw her family decline in just a few years as the mining industry crumbled.
The girl, whose family used to have dozens of luxury cars, is now heavily in debt due to the sluggish coal industry. Now she runs her own business by selling essentials and cosmetics on Wechat, China's most popular instant messaging app, to pay back the debt.
Wu's father sold coal in Shanxi and made huge fortune around 2000, when China's economy grew rapidly and the price of coal rose from less than 200 yuan per ton to 1,070 yuan per ton in 2008.
"We never ran out of cash at that time," said Wu Jingjing. “My family had several coal cleaning plants, one nursing house, a chemical plant, and a private club. We had dozens of luxury cars when the business was booming.”
When the price of coal in Shanxi fell since 2012 due to decline in demand, overcapacity, and increasing pressure from environmental protection, profits plunged.
The Wu family business dragged down. The family sold around 80 million yuan of coal but couldn't get the money back.
Wu's family went bankrupt, and their luxury cars and houses were mortgaged to banks.
Wu decided to change her father's way of doing business and make use of the Internet. She borrowed three million yuan from relatives and friends in 2014 and began her business. She bought high quality goods that are popular among Chinese buyers, such as formula milk, cosmetics, and clothes from Hong Kong, Japan, and the US through her friends, and then sold them on a Wechat account.
Her business developed rapidly thanks to her wide scope of friends. The revenue is more than 700,000 yuan per month, with 200,000 yuan of net profit. She even made 25,000 yuan within three days by selling juice extractors.
According to China's Ministry of Commerce, e-commerce transaction volume reached 20.8 trillion yuan in 2015, up by 27 percent year-on-year.
Wu Jingjing said she hopes to expand her business scale and add more varieties in her global supermarket.
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Wu Jinjing tallys the goods in her warehouse.[Photo by Zhang Yun/chinanews.com] |
