Visiting "Fake Shoes Capital" In Putian Transformation

19 trucks were burning towards the burning power plant, slowly lifting the carriage, and more than 20000 pairs of "designer shoes" poured out.

This is the morning of March 15, 2014, Putian, Fujian. In order to show the determination to fight against fake products, the Municipal Industrial and commercial bureau organized the shoe burning action.

Putian has been dubbed "the city of fake shoes" because of its massive output of counterfeit brand sports shoes. A widely circulated but unsubstantiated claim that 90% of the fake sports shoes in the domestic market come from here.

Now, the city's huge production capacity is anxiously looking for a way out.

　　 "Let the whole world wear famous brand".

"Putian people spend their time in the United States, sleeping in the daytime and going to work in the evening." Passing through the busy night, a taxi driver said.

Anfu District, located in northern Putian, is a secret entrance to the city.

It was originally a crematorium, far from the urban area, and began to become the distribution center of Katakana shoes in 2008, which is more prosperous than the city center. But since 2011, it has been changed to an electric mall. The subsidy policy on the wall shows the government's determination to guide the transformation of counterfeit goods.

However, during the day, all shops here are locked, even restaurants. After the night, only 1/3 of the shops opened, all of which are independent brands.

By midnight, Anfu district was boiling up. At 11 o'clock in the evening, motorcycles, tricycles and trucks crowded on the path. The lights from all sides broke the peace of the day.

On the back of the plot, dozens of couriers were busy receiving goods, and the tape was stabbed. People rush past, and they can see the shoeboxes in their hands at the moment of loading and unloading. They are not Nike, Adidas, or NB. Such a rush will last until two o'clock in the morning.

There are many factories in the population of 3 million, which produce famous brand sports shoes for overseas brands. At present, only 200 thousand of the population engaged in electricity business has created the work and rest of the city.

There is another synonym for "e-commerce" business, called "high imitation". That is, imitation Nike, Adidas and other brand-name shoes, sold at below the price of these brands.

Generally speaking, people who do high imitation will show that this is "fake shoes", and some consumers also welcome them. But sometimes, some Taobao stores, which are engaged in "overseas purchasing" business, will also sell these fake shoes in the name of "genuine products" and sell higher prices.

Taobao is the original position of Putian people.

"Anfu photo album" is the website of Putian middlemen to display the shoe samples to the national Taobao sellers. There are about 100 independent brand agents, and 600 and 300 Nike and NB shoe imitation agents.

"When you do it, hang on Taobao, each pair of shoes has a profit of fifty yuan, making three hundred and five hundred yuan a day." Liu Tian said.

Liu Tian, a native of Putian, returned to Putian in late 2013 when he went to school and worked in the field. He wanted to catch up with the last pot of gold.

But Taobao's crackdown is growing day by day. A few days ago, he tried to get a NB shoe link, and the shop was closed in three minutes.

He began withdrawing from Taobao, specializing in middlemen and supplying Taobao sellers. Now he has dozens of online stores connected to his hands.

Liu Tian's daily work is to take orders, go to factories to pick up goods in the afternoon, and send them to express delivery in the early morning. "Why do you work in the middle of the night? Because it can't see light." Liu Tian pointed to a pair of newly arrived high imitation NB shoes under the table.

Fake goods also have advantages and disadvantages. Liu Tian has a request for this product. His "goods" are real enough: the shoe material is the same as that of the shoe, and the shoe box is the same as the quality control card.

In the eyes of laymen, the only difference between high imitation shoes and real shoes is only the price. Even the salesmen of NB shoe counters do not have a good solution. "Only when you look at the soles, you can see that the fingernails of genuine shoes are pinched, and they will come back quickly, and the fake ones are not necessarily."

As for how to issue invoices and other credentials, Liu Tian feels that this question is "silly", "you buy yourself a stack of paper like that, get a printer, and print anything you want." He took out a pink receipt from his bag and looked up at the "Wanda shop", with the date, the salesperson's name and even the VIP card number, the price was 619 yuan.

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So the price of shoes, from Liu Tian here to get goods as long as 100 yuan. Selling fake goods? He does not encourage such greed. "Generally, it sells more than 200. Fake is fake, and people who buy it know it is false, but they will buy it".

"Let the whole world wear famous brand" is the slogan of Putian's fake shoes, and consumers know "fake buy fake" to provide them with a steady stream of market. On the Internet, a group of articles that denounce Putian's holiday shopping, the more than 2000 commentaries fall to the ground, "quite" Putian. "No Putian people do high imitation. Do you really deserve it?"

Even so, in recent three years, the fight against counterfeit goods has been shrinking. New positions are also emerging. Young minds are already using WeChat public numbers and friends' circle to do marketing.

In Putian, the "Liu Tian" is now completely underground. The whole city mentioned them like a closed mouth. "Do not know" is the most important answer. "Gao imitation" is almost forbidden.

　　　 "Before Ma Yun asked us to do it."

The huge production capacity of sports shoes is the origin of Putian's wealth and the origin of this "electricity supplier" industrial chain.

Of the more than 3000 factories in the city, only 10% were on the scale, and the vast majority were manual factories. In the two or three storey rural small courtyard, life, production and operation are "three in one", less six or seven, and dozens more.

Seven step village, one of the sources of Putian fake shoes. When entering the village, almost every family's doors are closed, and small advertisements on industrial and commercial banners and telephone poles are very lively: strike hard to sell trademark and packaging behavior, recruit glue brush, paste bottom, needle truck workers, Taobao training advertisement...... They are describing each link of the pipeline.

The Southern Weekend reporter walked along the street for half an hour and only saw a factory open the door. Sideways in, a villager at the door of the horse was sticking his vamp -- NB shoes, several pairs of sticks on the floor, and he himself wore a pair of blue ones.

The workshop is on the two floor. The boss is talking with some guests in Puxian dialect. When the stranger came in, he said hurriedly, "there is nothing here".

In Putian, shoe factories flourished for over twenty years.

Across the sea from Taiwan, Putian and Quanzhou were the mainland's "frontline" of Taiwan's earliest selection of processing plants. Since the beginning of 1980s, the proportion of footwear industry in local GDP has increased from 10% to 43% in 10 years.

As a foundry of international brands such as Nike and Adidas, products are strictly prohibited to flow out and are shipped back overseas. At first, there are always some shoes that exceed the order number, which can be left on the local side, called "tail sheet". Business minded Putian people began selling cheap products from the Internet and starting cross-border businesses.

Putian's "electricity supplier" grew up in a brutal age. A local shoe dealer told the Southern Weekend reporter that a customer wanted 42 yards of shoes. They sent 43 yards to 42 with black pens, and even had two shoes of different sizes.

When the "second order" goods are not enough, fake products of high imitation emerge as the times require. Around 2004, this life reached its peak. At that time, six or seven of the ten shops on the streets of Putian were imitation shoes stores.

The market of high imitation business will move to Anfu District belonging to resettlement area in 2008.

After several years of foreign trade, foreign trade has been suppressed, and even New York Times reporter has gone to Putian to investigate. Putian people began to turn their sights on the country, just catching up with the timing of domestic electricity suppliers.

"Before Ma Yun asked us to do it." Wang Yifeng, a manager of Anfu District, said. He has been opening a shop for nearly ten years, and has experienced ups and downs here.

Wang Yifeng remembers that when Taobao was just starting up, because Putian's high imitation goods "cheap and fine quality" accords with the competitive demand of online shopping, specially set up in Putian, weekly training Putian people how to do Taobao.

"Taobao is what we stir up, tens of thousands of people go out to sell. When we have "double eleven", we can sell six hundred million dollars every night when we sell shoes. Wang Yifeng is a little angry.

Around 2011, Taobao became the focus of media because of fraud. At a news conference, his founder Ma Yun threw out Putian, "to see, you will shock, that is the black industry chain, fake base!"

Since then, Taobao's fake shoes business has entered the cold winter period, and Putian is the first to bear the brunt.

Taobao has a special "attention" to Putian IP address and Putian identity card all the year round. Putian people's online shop has been batting down and being sealed up faster and faster.

Shi Feixiong, director of the Management Committee of Anfu electric mall, said that the problem that Putian electric providers reflect most is "being discriminated against". "Ali is similar to us in the early days, but they have made an early transition."

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　　 Guci, nite and ZB

Transformation is a pain that Putian shoe makers have to face.

Wang Yifeng's family has been doing shoes business since his father's generation. The two brothers took over for nearly 10 years. They were also the high imitation of Nike. "Was arrested by the industry and commerce, a penalty of about one million." In 2011, he began to switch to his own brand.

Self brand is more like "edge ball". His trademark looks just like CONVERSE: white double circular frames, surrounded by a Red Pentagram, but the English is not "converse", but "eshoeses".

He found a balance between market demand and Law: the style can not be the same as that of CONVERSE. If you want to make a copy of CONVERSE, you can get rid of their English.

"Now, as long as this shop is not dead." Wang Yifeng sat behind the computer, cut his nails and began to cut the jeans thread. He didn't speak up.

He works 4 hours a day, from seven to eleven in the evening. Without the risk of fines, earning 3.4 million a year is also a drought and waterlogging guarantee. As for whether he really made his own brand, he never thought, "what do we do when we act as agents?"

For the "independent brand" of the edge ball, Raymond Lam, director of Putian industry and Commerce Bureau, said, "as long as the registration is passed, there is no problem."

As a result, there are "camels in western regions", "Taiwan camels" and "camels" in Putian; there are "nite" and "visitors"; and the "N" sign "New York".

In March 2014, Xiao Wu, who came from Wenzhou, came to the Anfu district to buy goods. He sold the same shoes of NB, but "N" wrote in reverse. "It can't punish me, you say N? I also say it's Z!"

Putian brand GUCCI Tianlun, known as Guci, is known as Putian's largest independent brand. "We don't depend on Gucci, they have nothing to do with them." Chairman Lin Guoliang said. This brand was bought by an intermediary in 2011, "I feel the atmosphere is also foreign."

After the first year's failure, Lin Guo Liang's company has grown up, and now has more than twenty thousand network distributors. In Taobao, the search for high-heeled shoes and GUCCI Tianlun ranked sixth.

In Putian, such achievements are not common, and more people are still struggling in the high imitation chain.

Jinjiang, Quanzhou, is often compared with Putian. It is also the earliest city to be stationed in the foundries. Jinjiang has already made famous sports brands such as Anta, XTEP and 361 degrees.

Putian has tried and failed. For example, Li Nu, who started with Anta at the same time, failed to make money after 50 million hit. Since then, a large number of slaves have entered the middle of Anta. Now that Anta has been listed on the Hong Kong stock market, Li Nu has become its foundry factory, erasing its own brand, earning a profit of 7 yuan per pair of shoes.

　　 "Can't dirty water, children splash together"

"Independent brand transformation needs money." Shi Feixiong said. In Putian, most of them are students or young people who work part-time. Capital Nintaus is what they lack.

In the past three years, the amount of penalty for industrial and commercial counterfeiting has reached 18 million 710 thousand yuan, and the amount of 50 thousand involved in each fake business will be transferred to public security organs. "Small businesses can't afford tens of thousands of fines. Once they are handed over to public security companies, the company will die." A head of the industry and Commerce Bureau said.

More difficult than simple and brutal extermination is the direction of huge production capacity. In the process of transformation, how to ensure that Putian's economy is not in a low ebb.

"Can't dirty water, children splash together." Raymond Lam, director of industry and commerce, told the Southern Weekend reporter that in the face of hundreds of thousands of working people, they were also making a difference between "extinguish" and "turn".

At present, the government is trying to introduce famous brands, which are sold by the big business force of Putian.

If the fake shoes are "dirty water", the "children" left behind are young people in Putian, and the experience they have accumulated over the past 10 years. A proven story is that Zhang Qi, the founder of the company as the local signboard enterprise, moved the enterprise from Xiamen to Putian in order to find a distributor who can play Taobao.

Walking around the streets, Taobao's training class is being advertised around the tricycle, the Taobao foundation and upgrading skills 1200 yuan package learned. There are slogans like "everyone can afford" in the residential buildings. People in the Internet cafes are crowded, and the eight upper and lower beds of the dormitory are full of people who study online.

From the training of thousands of people in Alibaba to private schools everywhere, locals have turned Taobao into a job.

Such skills can really bring new business, and the locals do not know the answer. Many people still have to hang on to the familiar chain of high imitation business.

In the early morning of March 16th, Anfu District welcomed the new day.

People jumping out of the surrounding residential buildings are carrying a stack of shoeboxes on their motorcycles.

The express market in Anfu district is already unsafe. A large number of motorcycles start from the community and enter crisscross streets. They are scattered at different junctions, looking for roadside collection points within three kilometers.

However, they do not know how long the business will last and where will it be in the future?