Zheng Jie, a resident in Shitang town in the county-level city of Wenling, Taizhou, promotes seafood via a livestream. [Photo/taizhou.com.cn]

Zheng Jie, a resident in Shitang town in the county-level city of Wenling, Taizhou, has recently been busy promoting seafood via livestreams.

Instead of opting to sell seafood in markets like her parents, the young girl is determined to ride the e-commerce wave and has already seen some success, with daily orders from her livestream reaching up to 100.

Zheng is an example of how the city's e-commerce drive in rural areas has been boosting income levels.

Official statistics from the Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce show that Taizhou currently has 51 Taobao towns and 376 Taobao villages, ranking first and third in East China's Zhejiang province respectively.

In addition, Taizhou is ranked fourth in Zhejiang in terms of the number of active online stores.

The city's thriving e-commerce sector has directly or indirectly created 384,000 jobs.

Lingxiangdian village in Taizhou's Jiaojiang district is currently a manufacturing hub for children's wear, with about 30 percent of its products being sold online.

According to Fang Qihong, Party chief of the village, more than 400,000 units of popular products can be sold through livestream promotions. By leveraging e-commerce platforms, the output value of the village's children's wear industry grew to 600 million yuan ($92.3 milion) in 2021.

Taobao is an online marketplace run by Alibaba. The AliResearch Institute lays out three requirements for the designation of Taobao villages: the business operation site must be village-based, annual e-commerce sales must total at least 10 million yuan, and the number of active online stores must exceed 100 or at least 10 percent of all households in the village must be engaged in online businesses.

A Taobao town refers to a town or sub-district with at least three Taobao villages. It also must be home to at least 300 active online shops with over 30 million yuan in e-commerce sales on Alibaba marketplaces.