South China’s Guangdong province on Wednesday announced the opening of China’s first online shopping platform in prison at a province-wide conference on online shopping for prisoners.
In January, the Guangdong Prison Administrative Bureau singled out Conghua Prison as a pilot for online shopping. During the pilot period between January and April, prisoners made more than 13,000 orders, purchasing more than 400,000 items, without a single case of quality-related returns or other disputes.
In the past, prisoners had to handwrite a shopping list and give it to the officers, who would print it out and return it to the prisoner for confirmation, a prisoner surnamed Yuan told the newspaper.
Now, Yuan said, it is more convenient to place an order at the terminals.
Yuan added that it took as long as a month to get purchases in the past, while now it is shortened to a matter of several days.