Putian Shoe City: A Large Scale Counterfeit Shoe Base

For Putian, a coastal city in central Fujian, after the night falls, there must be a place called "Anfu district" in the busiest area. This is a well-known "ah rush" base in Putian. It is a newly built demonstration area with 330 independent brand merchants.

"Ah Fu" is a counterfeit. As a thriving industrial force in the 90s of last century, Putian's "Ah Fu" has become a highly famous brand. shoes And fame.

In the official view, Anfu district has started from 300 selling counterfeit sneakers, and now it has transformed to 330 independent brands, specializing in online sales. The Chengxiang district government of Putian is aiming to build Anfu district as the largest e-commerce demonstration area in Fujian province.

However, at night, there is still a strange phenomenon, one side is the brightly lit independent brand distribution shop, the other side is a large number of Nike and Adidas logistics personnel coming in and out.

As a staff member of Chengxiang economic and Trade Bureau said, "you have to eliminate it completely, it is very difficult, and it will take a long time. Only after the formal electricity market is formed, will they be transformed naturally.

　　 The rivers and lakes of "Ah Fu"

At 9 o'clock in the night. A shoe factory The boss, ah Jie, successfully delivered the goods and returned to a hidden warehouse opposite Anfu district. He said: "recently, the industry and commerce are so tight, who dares to do in Anfu district?"

Ah Jie is dark skinned, black T-shirt and wearing a gold necklace, like most of the businessmen speak a fluent Mandarin. Starting at 7 o'clock every night, he drove the Buick business car in the traffic of Anfu district. At this time, Anfu district is like a logistics terminal. There are one hundred or two hundred pairs of Nike, ADA and a few new hundred Lun in his car. They are all counterfeit. When he sends these goods from door to door to the agent, he will finish the day's work.

Located at the edge of the Chengxiang District in the old town of Putian, the Anfu community is composed of 16 low rise apartment buildings. It belongs to the old village reconstruction and resettlement house. In Putian, it is known to all that there is no place for people in Anfu District, but a stronghold for "Ah Fu". And ah Jie belonged to this army.

They are not ashamed of their special occupation that local people enjoy.

Not far from Anfu District, the owner of a Longyan tea shop said she knew a lot of "Ah Fu". She took out a pair of Nike running shoes of 100 yuan, and proudly said, "Putian people never wear genuine cards", and asked reporters if they wanted to introduce business.

In the 80s of last century, due to the convenience of Taiwan, Putian became a landing point for Taiwanese shoe manufacturers and brand-name foundry enterprises to move to the mainland. In 90s, Daphne's first mainland factory was set up in Putian. Putian became famous in Fujian and even in the whole country before Jinjiang. Letao 。

However, at that time, low cost raw materials and labor cost gave birth to high imitation shoes, and the workers in the factory were bribed to sneak out shoes or design drawings. At the peak, every "counterfeit factory" will hire one or two regular "foundry" enterprises.

Since the beginning of this year, the pressure of survival has suddenly increased. The industrial and commercial departments have visited the Anfu District overnight. During the day, the doors of these houses were locked, and "Ah Fu" was used to receive online orders from another place in the city.

"Fortunately, this is a private house, and the industry and commerce can't take a surprise check, otherwise it is a private intrusion." Ah Jie, sitting in the rough rough room and playing with the luxury tea set, pointing to the Nike 4 running shoes on the foot of our reporter, said, "this kind of shoes can be made only if we can see them for a few years."

For "Ah Fu", there is no shoe that can not be imitated, but only shoes which do not want to be imitated. The same pair of shoes, from low imitation to 1: 1 high imitation, different production lines, the price difference can be twenty or thirty yuan. In terms of material, workmanship, appearance and cleanliness, Ajie's team manages the cost with ease. "As long as the buyer is willing to spend the cost, we can make no difference from the franchised store."

But adje admits that in Anfu, shoes that are almost the same as those in counters are not found, and the cost of mold development and replacement shoes makes them feel that it is unnecessary to do so. "A set of molds cost tens of thousands of yuan, a pair of shoes cost 200 yuan, and profit margins are not competitive."

Ah Jie has opened the factory for 10 years, and now he can not earn excess profits in the industry competition. In addition, the factory's security monitoring is getting stricter and the drawings are no longer good. Even so, the highly imitated people have already got the answer: because they master the core technology, they only need to buy a pair at the exclusive store, so they can do it.

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Anfu ecology

The predecessor of Anfu district was the more than 100 counterfeit shoe stalls on the street outside Putian University. The rise of online shopping made many college students aiming at it. Counterfeit shoes And electricity providers, so in the vicinity of schools formed a similar wholesale market.

In October 2008, Xingye neighborhood committee collectively invited more than 100 shopkeepers to invest in Anfu District, and immediately expanded to more than 300, and entered the golden period. According to the heyday statistics, the annual volume of transactions reached 1 billion yuan, which attracted more attention. For the small town with a population of only 3 million, the number of highly imitated footwear practitioners reached 200 thousand.

A widely spread view is that 1 out of every 3 pairs of Nike shoes in the world are imitation from Putian. The selling system of sports shoes is mainly divided into counter company goods, factory shoes (so-called tail sheet), cut shoes (original factory assembled shoes) and Putian goods. In fact, the number of so-called factory and cut shoes is not large, most of them are Putian goods. Putian goods are divided into several grades according to their workmanship and material.

Earlier, Putian did not "copy the bottom" of the market, and AI and industrial and commercial personnel were always ambiguous in the round of cat and mouse rounds. This reporter in Anfu District encountered a Chengxiang district industry and Commerce Bureau inspectors introduced, before the rise of online shopping, Anfu mainly for export, involving the domestic market is not much, "we also do not have a good grasp of what they are doing."

The inspectors explained why the Anfa's counterfeiting business has been banned for many years. "They are like rats in the street. They can't finish them all at once, only slowly disappear."

Lin Lizhen, director of the three production office of Putian Chengxiang economic and Trade Bureau, told our reporter that Anfu district was haunted at night. On the one hand, in order to avoid industry and commerce, on the other hand, it was to cope with the jet lag abroad.

The sales mode of Anfu is rather mysterious and unique, as a staff member of Chengxiang economic and Trade Bureau described to our reporter: "this may be a new occupation. We call it a wholesaler."

Every night, even though the lights are downstairs, and every window on the upstairs is like a black eye, it is peeping at the Business Bureau in the dark. This reporter just walked in and out of a unit, closed the door carefully and opened it carefully, then shut down. In the corridor, a high imitation shoe manufacturer who came to deliver the product told our reporter: "if you don't introduce it, knock on the door is useless."

There is a saying that as long as one room, one or two computers and a small number of people can make up a company. In the daytime, they receive orders from all over the country online, and send them to the manufacturers. They are sent to the manufacturers by the manufacturer in the evening, and the goods are sent to the national electricity supplier through the logistics that night. Anfu's industrial chain has a clear link.

There are also a few manufacturers like AI to sell direct and realistic imitation. Gym shoes Stacking around, QQ on the computer constantly sounded the message, which is the order from all over the country. Ah Jie disagrees, "even the cat mall also asked us to get the goods, but the goods are better, not professional is invisible."

And the profit distribution is also quite clear. Our reporter learned from many manufacturers that wholesale to Anfu, the gross profit of each pair of shoes is around 5 yuan, and wholesalers sell 5 yuan to local stores.

Many wholesalers told this reporter that the biggest profit margin is the terminal, that is, shop, "for example, a pair of shoes out of the factory only 100 yuan, and sold to Taobao 200 yuan." An Anfu wholesaler told the newspaper reporter. The business of making shoes in Putian is spread all over the country, and most wholesalers in Anfu district have more than one online shop on Taobao. In Anfu, people think that pricing is a question from a university. "Sometimes the same pair of shoes, you are more expensive than others, but customers buy your list." A Taobao seller who came to pick up the goods said with interest to our reporter.

Manufacturers, wholesalers, network army, logistics, four in one form of Anfu ecology, because the network, Anfu shoes can blossom everywhere. Even under this trend, Anfu people collects and collects the brands, source information, contact ways and business names of the businesses, collects and collects the traditional Anfu District, and builds an e-commerce portal like "Putian business city".

Taobao stores across the country can find corresponding sources in the network. This reporter randomly added several merchant's QQ, were told that as long as opened the "baby" album, which one can see directly, Alipay transactions, the whole process is anonymous and safe.

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Eventful times

2011, Putian. High imitation shoes On the Taobao network, the sales volume reached 3 billion 300 million yuan, and network sales ranked fourth in the whole province. According to another data, there are 80% famous brand sports shoes on Taobao, which are made in Putian.

In the same year, the good days of Anfu people also entered the eventful period. From 2010 to 2011, the Alibaba triggered a personnel earthquake due to the incident of "China supplier fraud international seller": due to internal reports, hundreds of employees and more than 2000 Putian "fraudulent suppliers" were included.

In an internal speech, Ma Yun said, "where do these swindlers come from? Mainly from Fujian. We have data. We ran into it 4 years ago in Quanzhou. " After that, he appealed to the media to pay attention to Putian, Fujian.

This is a far-reaching impact on the whole business of counterfeit shoes, and is also sufficient for the government to attach importance to the production and transportation under the line. At the end of 2010, the State Council deployed a special action to crack down on intellectual property rights infringement and counterfeit and shoddy products. Putian's "doubles" action, consisting of three parties, including industry and commerce, intellectual property and quality supervision, launched the first investigation of counterfeiting businesses.

Lin Lizhen, director of the three production office of Chengxiang economic and Trade Bureau, remembers that she would come to Anfu every day after work. According to the registration information of the local residence Committee, a family knocked at the door. "The renters will tell you that they are living people, and you have no idea what they are doing inside."

In fact, as early as 2006, the public security organs in Putian had been involved, and more than 120 counterfeit Nike signs were seized. In April 2007, a Putian city commerce and Industry Bureau said that in the past 3 years, 294 cases of foreign trade footwear trademark infringement cases have been investigated and dealt with by the Putian industrial and commercial system. The value of the case is about 3000000 yuan, and the penalty is 2 million 160 thousand yuan.

However, "Ah Fu" is more like the seeds of dandelion and constantly sprouting from soil. Reporter in the Anfu encounter exactly to deliver the factory driver Weng Zhiyong, with past experience, he said: "the government will not be destroyed, if really destroyed, less contribution to output value, so many people how to do employment?"

And in May this year, Taobao's unprecedented "special rectification" from the line made the Anfu people feel the bitter winter. "It's kind of like fighting to death this time." Weng Zhiyong said.

This rectification involves categories including sports shoes, among which the main brands are Nike and Adidas. Taobao announced that once counterfeit goods were found, they would be punished by 24 points, and the penalty scores would be added to the next year. It is understood that 48 points for the upper limit of business, once deducted, will never have to resume business.

One day in June, a Taobao seller in Putian made statistics: "Nike at 20 o'clock last night." Gym shoes Class also has 1915625 (double) number, 21 points for 1913567 (double), exclude the lower shelf products, at such a speed estimate, Taobao will delete at least 1 million 440 thousand (double) Nike sports shoes products in June.

The sellers said in the post: almost 20 days, almost all of them will withdraw from the stage of history. The downstream panic is directly transmitted to the upstream production chain. Weng Zhiyong's factory is quite cautious now, canceling the warehouse of Anfu district and distributing it directly from the factory every night. Weng Zhiyong is the only driver and salesman in the factory. He told the newspaper reporter, if you want to order, add a QQ directly on the Internet. In 2003, there were more than 3000 counterfeit shoe manufacturers in Putian, and over the years they were gradually integrated or eliminated with the development of the industry. In recent years, it is difficult for them to survive. They have gained a common understanding and can not disclose the specific address of the factory under any circumstances.

This reporter has access to, from this year, the counterfeit factory was checked, the boss into the news of the news is frequent in the local media. The personnel involved almost covered the entire industrial chain, and shoe manufacturers, shoemaking factories, wholesale agents, and electronic business personnel were all in administrative detention.

"Not only bail millions of dollars, but also have to know people inside. It's very troublesome." Weng Zhiyong said that no factory would dare to bring outsiders into the factory, even big customers. He described in a vague way that the factory site was in the Hualin Industrial Park in the suburb of Chengxiang District, with two production lines and 50 workers. Orders can be made 2000 times a day, although only two hundred digits can be digested every day in Anfu, but most of the orders come from exclusive stores in Southeast Asia.

According to the website of the Putian municipal government, the Hualin Industrial Park has integrated 46 existing enterprises, with an annual output value of 650 million yuan. It is a mixed industrial park mainly composed of shoe leather, food and electronics. Weng Zhiyong said that the factory that was not listed was acquiesced in the park. "It looks like a regular shoe factory, but there are many other factories that do counterfeit."

Weng Zhiyong's factory did not think about transformation. 3 years ago, they had simulated a pair of "rocking shoes" from a shoe factory in Jinjiang, and made their own brands. In the first quarter, they spent 2 million yuan on advertising on Taobao's home page.

"This is relatively small, independent brand must first direct sales and distribution, no advertising can not fight." The high advertising cost has made the factory that is not born out of its own initiative to go back to business.

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　　 Difficulties in transformation

According to 2010 data, Putian shoe making The annual output is nearly 50 billion yuan, of which nearly 2 billion U. S. exports, employing more than about 200000 people. As the world famous brand foundry, the city has been awarded the title of China footwear research and design center and China footwear information center.

The neglect of self creation and imitation is always a stain on Putian's shoe city signs. Compared with Jinjiang, another shoe city in Fujian, Putian started earlier but failed. In the 90s of last century, when Jinjiang shoe companies invested heavily in "making brand", Putian shoe manufacturers cooked frogs in foundry and counterfeit "warm water".

Today, the footwear industry in Jinjiang occupies 8 seats in the top 10 sports brands in China, with 12 listed companies and 26 listed reserve enterprises, while Putian still lingers between counterfeit and licensing, which is always constrained by historical burden. As a local entrepreneur has said, 1 hundred million of advertising is not worth the past $10 million.

Due to the development of e-commerce in Anfu District, the local government pushed the boat and set up the demonstration zone of Anfu net sales brand, guiding the electricity supplier to take the right road. Starting from 2011, the Chengxiang district government has set up a special fund of 3 million yuan every 3 years.

"At that time, the municipal Party committee leaders thought that Anfu had hidden a number of potential e-commerce operators. If we make good use of it, we will be a strong professional force." Lin Lizhen, director of the three production office of Chengxiang economic and Trade Bureau, said.

Anfu's network army is one of the top in the country. The first Taobao training school in the country was born in Putian, and it is unique today. Anfu now has a new business: Taobao's brushes, in essence, is through a new development of the background control system, for the store's virtual sales, thereby affecting the Taobao ranking, pushing some stores to the forefront of search page to attract buyers' attention.

All kinds of business cards and advertisements, like snowflakes, cover the night of Anfu, Lin Junxi, who is doing the brush business, told the newspaper reporter, "how much brush you want to brush, how much do you want to talk to us?"

The Taobao training school, which is located near Anfu District, rents two apartments in a residential building. Every day, the network merchants from all over the country come to the house. "School" provides hostels, just like the New Oriental of Taobao. Chen Wenhai, the boss, teaches in person everyday. He opens Taobao's "ah rush" online shop and demonstrates how to attract attention through page design and increase turnover. One student told our reporter that the more mysterious and mysterious course is how to make the IP of Putian store look like the outside world, so as to reduce the risk of Taobao being discovered and chased.

Anfu people open shop online, while studying how to "advance" inside the Taobao system. If not for counterfeit services, perhaps these "network operators" have already launched a network marketing technology suitable for nationwide promotion.

Lin Lizhen recalled that in order to guide the network army on the wrong path, she once came from door to door to "comfort" and introduce policies. At present, the bottom shop of Anfu has been occupied by more than 330 private brands, with signboards hanging brightly. According to the Chengxiang district government's plan, we should cultivate thousands of independent brands in the future.

In this case, Ah Fu, who has not yet been transformed in Anfu, still lives a life of "seeing death". They live in a very asymmetric world with the bottom shop. All day long, their windows rarely light up, as no one has rented, and a salesperson in a Taiwan camel store told us that those who did not have lights were the anteroom, "they may be in the room in the hall."

Lin Guoliang, the owner of a well-known brand of women's shoes, told the newspaper reporter that "transformation is painful." A few years ago, he was mixed up in the counterfeit shoe net sales force. In 2011, Lin bought his own trademark. He called it "the first batch of good business" of Anfu.

"At that time, we were surrounded by imitation cards, which meant that we wanted to play cards and we didn't know how to do it." In 2009, Lin Guoliang opened a shop on Taobao, and noticed that the regulation of Taobao online was also increasingly stringent. It was automatically shut down automatically.

"At Anfu street, just one of us, LED lights up." At that time, Lin's storefront was very conspicuous in Anfa shop, which was still in full imitation. Today, the whole shop of Anfu is occupied by various local brands, but it is never strong enough.

Putian footwear industry, which grew up in the foundry of OEM, is not easy to conquer counterfeit genes and grow in a new cradle of independent innovation. A lot of "ah rush" transformation started their own brand, but there are more "Ah Fu" accustomed to the night.

Lin Guoliang believes that the survival rate of independent development of brand is not high, "making money and not making money is very large." Self design shoes are often slow in time, and the styles developed are limited to resist losses caused by not selling well.

So Lin Guoliang has no independent research and development, but to authorize the production of other factories under the mode of placing orders, so that the quality and style of the seventy or eighty manufacturers can be evaluated more widely. He said that he had accumulated more than 7000 network distributors, many of whom had made counterfeit shoes before, and now they only make his shoes.

In a sense, "Zheng" has reformed the industrial structure, but according to our reporter, the business of Lin boss's scale is only rare in Anfu. In order to differentiate competition, businessmen after transformation do not make sports shoes or shoes, but one night they are still submerged in the sea of imitation sports shoes.

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　 Fight against counterfeit protracted war

For the United States, intercepting counterfeit products from China can only be confiscated, recorded and smuggled by customs. For China's "troublemaker" far away from the other side of the ocean, it is impossible to catch up.

The international public opinion is more of a helplessness. The US Cbs Broadcasting Inc has said in the news that the successful attack or seizure of counterfeit goods from China is only a victory, and the war between China and counterfeit products is endless. This war is like a game of cat and mouse. The mouse is always at ease with you one step faster than you. According to the data released by the US Customs and Border Protection Bureau in March this year, in the 2012 fiscal year, the total value of intellectual property infringement products seized by the United States amounted to US $1 billion 260 million, of which China was the most important source of goods being seized, accounting for 72% of the total.

Zhang Qiting, director of communications in Greater China, told the newspaper that "counterfeit Adidas has caused the loss of the company's sales. At the same time, when consumers are disappointed with the products sold under the brand name, it also has a potential impact on the reputation of the company". "Zhang Qiting,"

"Overall, there are more manufacturing problems in Asia than in the west, where there are more import or consumption problems. In China, two problems exist. In 90s, Adidas tried to clear the local retail market of counterfeit products. At present, Adidas has developed a retailer protection plan covering most cities in the country and a mandatory project involving factory raids. In 2012 and 2013, actions against counterfeit dealers will increase. Zhang Qiting said.

Counterfeit shoes also allow Nike to authorize professional anti-counterfeiting teams to jointly conduct a surprise attack on counterfeit products on the market. In April this year, a professional anti-counterfeiting company in Shanghai conducted a surprise attack on the Wuhan Baima mall, and found the counterfeit scene. clothing The total number of 15 bags is over 1400. Initially identified by professionals. clothes They are all counterfeit products.

Chen Naiyu, Professor of Fudan University and senior partner of Jin Tian Cheng law firm, said that China has advanced in the enforcement of intellectual property rights, but there are still fake and shoddy and infringing intellectual property rights. The reason is not only a weak sense of law but also a huge profit in order to reduce the cost of R & D, which is largely due to people's luck.

The principle of "fill in" is the main principle of civil tort in China and the basic principle of the application of intellectual property infringement compensation. Chen Naiyu explained to our reporter that if the infringer made 10 single fake products, only one of the products had been sold and lost to the infringed person, the infringer would only have to compensate for the actual loss caused by the sale of the single product.

The "filling principle" has a very direct consequence, which is to let the infringer embrace a gambling mentality: if you are caught, you are ruthless, but if it is not caught, then I will be strong. Chen Naiyu added.

In July 31st of this year, China and the United States Customs enforcement departments jointly carried out intellectual property law enforcement for the first time, and seized over 243 thousand counterfeit electronic products. However, in the face of the rising e-commerce, the attack on the line is only a drop in the bucket.

Lev Kubiak, director of the National Center for intellectual property rights (levkubiak), has said that for law enforcement agencies, to crack down on Internet sales, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive inspection along the supply chain of products. These include websites, manufacturers, carriers, shipping routes, entry ports, distribution channels and payment methods.