Instead of traipsing around the countryside with brooms in hand, she would sell the brooms on the internet.

With the aplomb of a seller who knows how a good story can add immeasurably in selling something as mundane as brooms, she decided to introduce a very personal dimension to her sales pitch: She shot videos of Gao, who recounted his story, and told of how his brooms are made and something about life in villages such as his.

Eventually these videos were circulating on social media, and orders were pouring in from all around China.

By now well aware of e-commerce's potential to change lives, Ge decided to piggy-back on the broom business to help villagers economically, and they had soon hon-ored her by nicknaming her Saobajie , or The Broom Lady.

In fact three years before Ge met Gao, in 2014, when she was 40, she had returned to her village with her husband and opened an online store that sold the products and specialties of local farmers and other villagers.