In Jinsha town of Yongding district, Longyan city in Fujian province, there is a special self-service stall where vendors sell their vegetables without showing up. Customers come to the stall and left money after picking up their favored goods. [Photo by Organization Department of Yonding District/provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"The stall emerged in 1997 as some villagers had some surplus home-grown vegetables," said Zhang Chuanjia, Party secretary of Xitian village. "They put the vegetables on a street for selling, but they didn't want to spend time keeping the vegetables instead of doing farm work."

"Villagers entrusted neighboring shop owners to help sell the vegetables," he said. "Later, they found that if they well sorted and priced the vegetables, buyers would leave money without any sellers' operation."