The operation of rural e-commerce by college student returnees is a vivid manifestation of the identity traits shaped by their higher education experiences in rural society. Through in-depth interviews with 15 college student returnees in Dajizhong Town， Caoxian County， based on the framework of sustainable livelihood analysis， this study systematically examines their distinctive operational strategies across the three stages of design， production， and sales， revealing the underlying mechanisms that enable the sustainable operation of rural e-commerce among this group. The findings show that in the design stage， they adopt differentiated competition strategies， focusing on market mass demands and the creation of identifiable products； in the production stage， they implement a refined division-of-labor strategy， optimizing processes and improving efficiency； in the sales stage， they employ attention-capturing strategies， enhancing market competitiveness through traffic operation and content marketing. These business strategies represent innovative choices shaped by their livelihood capital. Specifically， the full exercise of subjective initiative constitutes their subjective logic， the timely mobilization of livelihood capital their action logic； and the creation of a healthy market order their goal-oriented logic for achieving sustainable e-commerce operations.