The Exhilaration Supermarket in this dusty town in deep, rural Hunan province is changing the way farmers shop, trade and even live their lives -- to the relief of just about everyone here.

For generations the farmers from surrounding villages had to be content to shop in an outdoor market where hawkers sold toothpaste and shampoo beside local meat vendors. Bargaining for toiletries or an appliance -- if there was one -- wasn't much fun when the heat started to rise and the butcher's stall was just one over.

The new Exhilaration Supermarket, a two-storey brick building that's been renovated from an old warehouse, has finally brought rural retailing indoors. Stocked with all manner of dry goods, it's huge step up for local farmers. Biscuits and beverages and other staples are on the first floor -- small appliances and clothing are on the second.

The Exhilaration Supermarket is just one of 71,000 stores that have been built in towns and villages in a nationwide campaign that has brought indoor shopping to 100 million rural residents. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce, which is running the campaign, hopes 250,000 indoor markets will have been built in half the country's towns and villages by the end of 2007.

For farmer Chen Songchu, a visit to the Exhilaration Supermarket has become part of his routine stroll when he comes to town to pick up milk powder for his granddaughter.

"We don't have escalators or shopping carts but it's the only supermarket with general merchandise. It's always full of customers with long queues at the checkout counters," says Chen.

"Things are a little bit more expensive than at open-air markets but they'll give us refund here if buy something of inferior quality."

Shoddy goods have long been a hallmark of the old temporary open-air marketplaces. Local farmers, who have little shopping experience and few choices, were often ripped off by unscrupulous traders who would leave town before their scam was discovered, says Wu Gaohan, deputy secretary-general with the China Consumers Association.

Mr. Wang, who is in charge of procurement for Exhilaration, says indoor markets in the rural areas not only shield customers from bad weather they have also brought better quality goods to the countryside.

Wang says the Exhilaration Supermarket buys 80 percent of its commodities directly from manufacturers.

"This means we can guarantee the quality of our goods and our buying power means we can buy directly from factories or wholesalers," says Wang.

The Exhilaration Supermarket has done so well in the town of Qingshu(which means green tree), a home appliance and a furniture store have also opened with help from the government store-building program.

Although the rural indoor markets and department stores are much smaller than their urban counterparts they also present a new frontier for manufactures, says Guo Zhijun, deputy secretary-general with the China Research Society of Business Culture.

While the purchasing power of China's 900-million rural resident may not be that high there's a lot of pent up consumerism that's craving to be released. The new indoor stores are a new direct link to this vast and virtually untapped market of rural consumers, Guo says.

Source: Xinhua