Amid spiralling infertility rates, sperm banks across China have been running dry. Worsening environmental conditions and hectic work schedules have taken their toll on male fertility in China, experts say.
According to a 2012 study by the China Population Association, a state agency, 12.5 per cent of Chinese couples are infertile.
Enter Alibaba, whose Groupon-like website Juhuasuan markets everything from underwear to insurance. The ecommerce group’s move into boosting sperm donation features a banner advertisement with a phallic cartoon candle exploding into a white cloud, bearing the Chinese character for “semen” in bold lettering.
“Avid concentration” the ad reads, with a pun on the character jing which in Chinese means both mind and sperm. During the donation drive, Alibaba offered payments of up to $800 for successful sperm donations.
Posted between July 15-17, the campaign garnered 22,000 new registrants for the seven participating provincial sperm banks — equivalent to nearly a year’s worth of traffic for some of the centres.
“This exceeded all expectations,” said Wang Zhiqiang, director of the state sperm bank for Guanxi province. “On average, we get about 300 donors a year, but during the three days of the Juhuasuan event, more than 1,000 people signed up. Assuming 20 per cent of them will donate, that is 200 new donors.”
The mismatch in supply and demand for sperm has prompted donation centres to overcome many taboos in tradition-bound China. In April, the shortage had become so dire in Hubei province that the regional sperm bank turned to Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, to broadcast: “Stop wasting all that tissue paper!”
“Under-achievers! This is your opportunity! Hubei Sperm Bank is badly in need of sperm,” it said.
The shortage of sperm donations is partly caused by stringent requirements for donors — roughly one in five is acceptable — but mainly because men in China have “shyness about such topics”, according to Mr Wang. “We mainly try to get recruits by passing out flyers and holding awareness seminars, but we do not get enough qualified men.”
But Alibaba has made a speciality out of taking dysfunctional markets and overcoming everything from supply bottlenecks to onerous government regulations to low demand — it has done so in areas such as finance and taxis.
Matching sellers with the masses of online traffic is the company’s speciality, usually combining with a bit of fun, marketing savvy, big data and, most importantly in the case of sperm donation, anonymity.
“People feel shy and embarrassed when we meet them face-to-face,” said Mr Wang. But he said that marketing via the internet added a layer of privacy that makes previously forbidden topics acceptable.
“Online, when they don’t have to face a human being, they are more comfortable, and this is a major reason why this project is a success,” he said, adding: “We don’t know whether they will actually come in or not.”
