A small shop owner in a village by Chaohu Lake in Anhui, Gao Xia, has completely shifted her sourcing methods online since connecting with a PDD Holdings Inc service point at the end of 2025. "People in our village like to drink fruit juice with pulp during festive meals. Before the holiday, I bought three packs from PDD Holdings Inc to sell in my shop. Now, parcels can reach the village entrance without extra fees. We received 80 packages daily right up until New Year's Eve, something unheard of in previous years," she said.
Boosted by the "longest Spring Festival holiday in history," consumer market vitality surged in 2026. The festive atmosphere in the countryside is not only found in couplets, meals, and neighborly greetings but also in every parcel that traverses mountains to arrive at village entrances.
Yu Shengmin, living in the Qinling-Daba Mountain region of Shaanxi, received Yunnan snow lotus fruit he ordered for just over 40 yuan within three to four days. "I never imagined fruit from Yunnan could reach our mountainous area so affordably and conveniently," he remarked. The Spring Festival, as a major annual consumption peak, acts like a prism, reflecting real changes in the capillaries of China's economy. In the vast countryside, the pattern of "online group buying — pickup at the village entrance — sharing among neighbors" has become a daily routine.
This new landscape is supported by the systematic extension of national postal infrastructure and e-commerce platform services. Since piloting "free village delivery" in the fourth quarter of 2025, PDD Holdings Inc has deployed county-level transfer warehouses and village-level collection points across many regions, covering the secondary transfer costs for village-bound orders. This addresses challenges like high logistics costs in remote villages and low merchant willingness to ship, bringing more remote rural areas into "free shipping zones." This initiative is part of PDD Holdings Inc's "Hundreds of Billions in Support" plan and aligns with the 2026 Central Document No. 1's call to "support the co-construction and sharing of rural logistics facilities and deepen express delivery services into villages."
A relevant business head from PDD Holdings Inc stated that, guided by national strategy, rural consumption has become an emerging force driving domestic circulation. "The 'last mile' for getting industrial goods to the countryside is also the 'first mile' for getting agricultural products to urban markets." Building on the success of its "E-commerce Westward Advancement" in six western provinces, the platform is piloting "free village delivery" nationwide to aid rural livelihood improvements and balanced urban-rural development.
In Ankang, Shaanxi, Yu Shengmin, who has run a small shop for over 20 years, saw his life transformed after taking on PDD Holdings Inc parcel collection duties in December 2025. Frequent interactions with villagers asking for help with packages revitalized his once-quiet store. Similarly, in a remote village in Hefei, Anhui, shop owner Gao Xia's service point buzzes with activity. Although the village is part of Hefei, a trip to the city takes two hours by bus. With "free village delivery," villagers can now pick up parcels during a stroll, significantly boosting their purchasing enthusiasm.
Such scenes are unfolding in more villages across China. In Shimen, Hunan, villagers are using electric pruning shears and temperature-controlled kettles bought via PDD Holdings Inc. In Wuxi, Chongqing, a service run by a mother named Zheng Fayan handles 100-200 parcels daily. In Fufeng, Shaanxi, Wang Feifei can finally shop online for her rural parents with peace of mind, knowing they can collect packages just steps away. These logistics lines and village service points sketch a vibrant picture of rural life in the digital era during the Spring Festival. A Ministry of Commerce official noted that this year's holiday period saw a strong festive atmosphere, bustling activity, sustained policy effects, and vibrant rural consumption.
"Unbelievable! In previous years, parcel volume dropped sharply around Minor New Year, but this year our vehicles are packed," said Jiang Jingniu, a veteran courier responsible for delivering to remote villages near Hefei since late 2025, who was astonished by the rural purchasing power. He observed that many parcel recipients are elderly villagers who previously had to trek 7-8 kilometers on mountain roads to town, often reluctant due to cost and inconvenience. Now, with delivery to the village, they eagerly wait at the service points.
Sun Wenwen, responsible for delivering parcels to Yu Shengmin's shop, manages a local PDD Holdings Inc transfer warehouse. His routes take him to mountain villages over 500 meters above sea level, navigating narrow paths barely 3 meters wide, with cliffs on one side and deep valleys on the other. A 30-kilometer straight-line distance often requires 70-80 kilometers of driving. After a month of effort with local drivers, service expanded to over 90 administrative villages in the county. "I used to think it was just about delivering packages. Now it feels like bringing warmth to these mountain villages. No matter how tough the road, we must persevere," Sun said.
The convenience villagers enjoy stems from continuous policy support. From the State Post Bureau's "Express Delivery to Villages" project launched in 2020, to its inclusion in Central Document No. 1 in 2022, and the 2026 call to "deepen express delivery to villages," the rural logistics system has steadily improved through multi-party efforts. Since the latter half of 2025, PDD Holdings Inc has extended its "segmented transport + secondary consolidation + transfer fee reduction" model to cover the "last mile" of village delivery. Under the "free village delivery" program, merchants only need to send orders marked for "village delivery" to a transfer warehouse, with subsequent transport handled by the warehouse.
For example, Fufeng County in Shaanxi established a PDD Holdings Inc village transfer warehouse integrated with its county logistics distribution center. By consolidating 11 major courier companies and adopting a "county transfer, centralized sorting, unified delivery" model, parcels reach 71 village service points across the county. Remote village points now handle over 100 parcels daily on average. This service not only delivers quality goods to the countryside but also accelerates the flow of "local products to cities." Fufeng's famous apples, once "hidden in the deep mountains" due to high shipping costs and logistical challenges, can now reach national markets efficiently and affordably through PDD Holdings Inc service points that solve packaging and shipping issues.
According to National Bureau of Statistics data, China's rural retail sales exceeded 6.82 trillion yuan in 2025, growing 4.1% year-on-year, 0.5 percentage points faster than urban growth—a leading trend maintained for 46 consecutive months. Ministry of Commerce data shows national online retail sales in rural areas surpassed 3 trillion yuan for the first time in the same year, increasing 6.7% annually. These figures indicate that online shopping is reshaping rural consumption habits and commercial ecosystems, making the rural market one of the most resilient and promising segments of China's consumption growth.
As initiatives like "E-commerce Westward Advancement" and "free village delivery" materialize into tangible parcels, once-remote villages are increasingly sharing the dividends of the new e-commerce era.