Jiaohe, in eastern Jilin province, has embraced a host of business opportunities by riding the wave of e-commerce.

After the Jilin provincial government earmarked the city last year for the development of e-commerce, enterprises and individuals in the city launched 271 online stores on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao.com, 365good.com.cn and JD.com. On Taobao.com, there are currently 190 stores on the site that are based in Jiaohe.

Delisi Food Co, which has a branch office in Jiaohe, recently expanded their operations through the sales of products on mobile platforms, including WeChat, a popular mobile messaging service in China; Tencent QQ, an instant messaging software service; and micro blogs.

The online stores mainly offer local specialty products, including black fungus, mushrooms, wild nuts and rana japonica oil.

Exactly 148 stores of the 190 Taobao stores, for instance, focus on the sale of black fungus.

After the city held an online black fungus festival last year with the cooperation of a number of online platforms such as Taobao, Yhd.com and 1688.com, many of the city-based stores increased both awareness of their brands and product sales. Last year, online companies based in Jiaohe generated 30.75 million yuan ($4.95 million) in revenue.

The city has also established two e-commerce mini platforms of its own. The Jiaohe section on Yhd.com has sent 1,298 orders to customers since it was launched on Dec 16.

The sales of Jiaohe's specialty products on Taobao.com generated 24.85 million yuan in 2014, among which black fungus sales totaled 15 million yuan, according to statistics from e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

Contact the writers at dongjidong@chinadaily.com.cn and hanjunhong@chinadaily.com.cn

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