Zhong Zhou: A native of Ezhou, Hubei Province, he is a sophomore majoring in e-commerce at the School of Business and Technology, Wuhan Institute of Technology.
The student summer has come, and many college students have returned to their hometowns to spend their summer time relaxingly. However, Zhong Zhou from Wuhan Institute of Technology cannot enjoy the summer comfortably this year. He can't even return to his hometown Ezhou. Because summer is also the peak season for children's training, Zhong Zhou also received a lot of business from the "Wuhan Children's Training Information Center" opened on Yahoo Word-of-mouth, a lifestyle service website owned by Alibaba. Of course, the rewards of being busy are quite considerable. Zhong Zhou is now planning to use the summer to earn enough for next year's tuition.
Nowadays, it has become a trend for college students to use the Internet to find opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment. Some of Zhong Zhou's classmates have opened an online store, and the profits seem to be pretty good. Since his major is e-commerce, Xiao Zhong has always wanted to find some opportunities online, but he lacks the supply of goods to open a store, and he doesn't want to ask his family for money to purchase goods. Are there other opportunities online? Zhong Zhou got inspiration from his niece. Zhong Zhou’s niece is 6 years old this year and often attends art training classes. Zhong Zhou, who sometimes takes his niece to class on behalf of his sister, has also come into contact with many parents and training center owners. He found that the market for children's preschool education in Wuhan is huge, parents invest a lot, and the training centers are very profitable. However, there is a problem of poor information exchange between the center and parents. Many parents get information about training centers from colleagues, but they lack understanding of the facilities, teachers, and courses of the training centers. Many small and medium-sized training centers are also eager to pass on their information, but are unwilling to take the responsibility. Excessive promotion costs. Many bosses have expressed their desire to develop customers online, but they don’t understand. Of course, Xiao Zhong is familiar with the skills required for online promotion of merchants. With the mentality of giving it a try, Xiao Zhong contacted a merchant and said that he could help him promote online, and the other party would pay him based on the effectiveness of the promotion. The boss was very interested and agreed to cooperate with Xiao Zhong.
Zhong Zhou was very happy to be recognized by the merchant. He chose to open an outlet on Yahoo Word-of-mouth, a popular life service platform, and posted information about various services of the training center. Soon, many parents contacted Xiao Zhong to inquire about summer course arrangements. In the first week after the information was released, Xiao Zhong brought in three businesses for the center. According to the agreement with his boss, he received nearly 500 yuan in return. Now many merchants will contact Zhong Zhou to ask for his help in promotion. Not long ago, an early childhood training institution approached Zhong Zhou and asked him to help promote summer enrollment information. This simple operation brought Zhong Zhou 100 yuan in income. Currently, Zhong Zhou can earn an income of more than 1,000 yuan per month.
Before the summer vacation, Zhong Zhou received good news. He entered the top four of the Yahoo Word-of-mouth Online Broker Competition and received a valuable reward, which greatly encouraged Zhong Zhou. He has just entered his junior year, but Zhong Zhou is already feeling the pressure of future employment. Zhong Zhou, who lives in Ezhou, hopes to stay in Wuhan after graduation. "I want to run my own network well as a starting point for my own business after graduation." In the future, Zhong Zhou will build his "Wuhan Children's Training Information Center" on Yahoo! into a distribution center for children's training information in Wuhan.
Not just Xiao Zhong, the Internet has become a platform for more and more college students to find opportunities. The reporter learned from Yahoo’s word-of-mouth that the website has come into contact with many college students like Xiao Zhong and has made profits by assisting merchants in online promotion. Some experts call them Internet brokers, believing that this is the demand for supporting services generated by merchants in order to realize online marketing in the process of e-commerce in domestic life services. Since this industry has low investment and convenient time management, many college students have entered it, looking for opportunities to start a business or part-time job. The industries they target include real estate, housekeeping, tourism, education and training, catering and many other industries. Currently, there are more than 80,000 Yahoo! word-of-mouth outlets opened by college students for this purpose.