Students in a training class for female e-business owners visit an e-commerce expo in Changchun, Jilin Province, on June 12 (XINHUA)

Fang Qin, the founder of Hangzhou Beidu Science Co. Ltd. in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, launched haute couture brand YBREN online in 2014.

"A traditional haute couture store has to pay production costs and very expensive rent," Fang said. "My research showed that rent eats up at least 30 percent of a store's profits."

That is why she decided not to open a brick-and-mortar store for YBREN, but rather, to receive orders online and send staff to customers' homes to take their measurements. To ensure product quality, YBREN has partnered with Redcollar Garment Group in Qingdao, Shandong Province, which has 12 years of experience in the haute couture industry.

Fang said that her business model offers an elevated, personalized consumer experience that she believes will become preferable as more people learn this type of option is available. By lowering operational costs significantly, she hopes to make haute couture affordable for more people.

So far, the business model has been well received by both customers and investors. According to Fang, after the launch of YBREN's advertisement on popular social networking app WeChat, her company received nearly 100 orders in just three days.

The company also secured investment exceeding 10 million yuan ($1.57 million) in weeks, and began to make profits exactly two months after it went online. Earlier this year, Fang expanded her business from Hangzhou to nearby Shanghai.

Fang attributes YBREN's success to her business savvy and willingness to take risks.

In 2003, when Fang graduated from the College of Computer Science and Technology of Zhejiang University, she decided not to become a computer engineer. Instead she pursued advanced studies in the business school of the same university. Fang said that she chose business because she felt she was better at communicating with people rather than simply conducting research.

Her choice soon paid off. While pursuing her Master of Business Administration degree, Fang opened a translation company, which grew into one of Hangzhou's largest.

After graduation in 2006, she co-founded Kadang.com, which offers customized gifts and services ranging from clothing, shoes, jewelry and stationary to photo printing. In the five years Fang served as the website's CEO, its sales registered an eight-fold growth in 2007-14.

Her business experience prepared Fang to create and manage another company, and YBREN was born soon after.

Fang is one of China's millions of emerging female entrepreneurs in the online space. As the country is promoting mass entrepreneurship, women are quietly revolutionizing the business world by launching online businesses in particular.

A stronger presence

In China, women account for just one quarter of all entrepreneurs; but they own 55 percent of all Internet businesses, according to a white paper titled "Gender Equality and Women's Development in China," which was published by the State Council Information Office on September 22.

In the Internet era, consumers demand more customized products and services, and value design and the customer experience. In this respect, women have an advantage over their male counterparts, said Qian Yingyi, Dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University.

This May, the Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce business, unveiled a report titled "Women in the Era of Internet Plus," which sketches the general profile of female e-business owners in China.

They tend to be located in the four first-tier megacities--Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province. They are also large in number in the three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, Sichuan Province in the southwest, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Their average age is 32.6 years, much younger than their offline counterparts, whose average age is 47.6 years. In fact, 61 percent of female e-business owners are between 19 to 29 years old, the report revealed.

It also showed that between 51 and 67 percent of female e-business owners sell products such as cosmetics, maternal and child supplies, jewelry, shoes, bags and suitcases on Alibaba's C2C platform Taobao.com. In addition, they have also expanded into traditionally male-dominated sales industries such as furniture and digital products.

E-businesses owned by women are often relatively small in scale. The report showed that the average starting fund of women-owned shops on Alibaba's B2C platform Tmall.com is 210,000 yuan ($32,928), much lower than the average registered capital of 5.39 million yuan ($845,152) for brick-and-mortar businesses.

The low-cost and low-risk nature of online businesses makes them appealing to women, the report concluded.

Overcoming difficulties

Before opening her online flower shop, Ye Lei, a resident of Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, had a decent job in a state-owned company.

In 2013, she decided to quit her job and went into business. Yet when she told her parents of the idea, they could not accept that their university-educated daughter would become a "flower girl." They wanted her to choose a more traditional post-university career path.

"We are not just selling flowers, we are selling quality of life," Ye said. "We listen to the stories of every customer, and pick the right flower to express his or her individual feelings."

In addition to selling flowers, Ye's shop also contracts design and decoration of the venues for banquets, parties and other ceremonies. As a result of her business acumen and creativity, her company has an annual income approximating 1 million yuan ($157,000).

The same kind of prejudice was experienced by Zhou Liangliang, the founder of Shanghai Ximei International Trade Co. Ltd.

Zhou went to Japan in 2004 to study for six years. After returning to China, she decided to launch an online business instead of landing a white-collar job. Her parents, disapproving of her decision, refused to give her any financial support.

Being a "foodie" and having a younger brother working in the high-end food industry in Shanghai, Zhou entered the gastronomical sector in 2012. In the beginning, Zhou sold a property under her name to finance the operation of her company in Shanghai. She then rented a small office.

The business soon picked up and was able to take advantage of available opportunities. In 2013, Suyang County in Jiangsu Province provided Zhou a 2,000-square-meter warehouse as part of an entrepreneurship encouragement program. With help from her younger brother, Zhou's company contracted food suppliers across the country.

In 2014, Bobohou, the food brand launched by Zhou, registered an online sales volume of 12 million yuan ($1.88 million), and she now has stores on many of the major e-commerce platforms in China.

Gaining support

On June 16, Zhou was invited to a meeting hosted by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) to promote entrepreneurship and innovation among women.

At the meeting, Song Xiuyan, Vice Chairwoman of the ACWF, said that the government's entrepreneurship and innovation initiative provides new development opportunities for women. She hopes that female entrepreneurs will take advantage of Internet technologies and the opportunities they present in order to realize their business aspirations.

Cui Yu, another ACWF Vice Chairwoman, pledged on the same occasion that the federation will provide training and other related services for female e-business owners.

A number of established businesses such as home appliance maker Haier Group and Alibaba have also agreed to provide female entrepreneurs with business consulting services and training.

These opportunities are important for China's economy as it continues to modernize and find creative, dynamic business leaders--regardless of gender, location, or background. They are the future of the e-commerce industry.

Copyedited by Mara Lee Durrell

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