The first online shopping festival for Qixia apples launched at China's largest online retailer - Taobao.com.- between Oct 16 and 18 proved a great success as 615,000 kilograms of apples were sold and the sales revenue reached 10.88 million yuan ($1.71 million.

Qixia apple is a famous apple brand in Yantai, Shandong province. During the three days, the festival received over 120,000 orders and the hits touched 3.74 million. According to an online store owner, his store received 53,000 orders in three days and generated sales revenue of 3.2 million yuan. In the past, his daily sales volume was about 500 orders.

The festival, as the first cooperation between Qixia government and Taobao will pave way for Qixia's apple brand promotion and the development of "Internet Plus" strategy, claimed an official of Qixia government.

Also, to ensure the quality, the government has launched a quality tracing system to allow consumers to get detailed information about apples from QR codes on the quality tracing labels.

The mayor of Qixia pastes the first quality tracing label with a QR code on a parcel during the first online shopping festival for Qixia apples on Oct 16-18. [Photo/JiaoDong.net]

After its success, Ma Yun, the Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, delivered congratulation to the mayor of Qixia, Chen Zhaokuan on the fruitful festival and wished Qixia to take part in more such festivals at Taobao.

Edited by Shahnawaz Akhtar