Market Warming, Shoe Material Competition Intensifies In Jinjiang

　 Favorable information to promote market warming

　　 Or will trigger a new round of price war.

Last Monday, Zhang Xiaoling, the boss of a foreign trade company, could no longer wait for an urgent withdrawal of the foreign trade orders that had been placed in Wenling before that year. The purchase of raw materials and orders for the orders had been changed to Jinjiang Chen Dai.

"The unit price of Wenling is lower than that of the local market. Some of the less demanding lists will be put there, but not now. In order to ensure punctual time, we can only redeploy the list." Speaking of this situation, Zhang Xiaoling shook his head helplessly.

Her remarks were approved by Ding Minghui, general manager of Zhongli shoes materials Co., Ltd. However, in Ding Minghui's view, the transfer of orders from Wenling will indeed boost the market to a certain extent. However, the main reason why the whole Chai Tai shoe market is heating up is the improvement of the whole sports shoes market.

Since 2012, the domestic sports products market has been sluggish and the overall growth has stagnated. As an upstream supplier, the shoe material enterprises have also suffered a lot of injuries. However, since the second half of last year, a number of enterprises have reversed the declining trend of orders since 2012. In the first quarter of 2014, Anta ordered the first order growth since the third quarter of 2012. After that, a number of enterprises such as XTEP and PEAK also showed similar information in the announcement.

These signs of recovery are most rapid and true in the local shoe market. Before and after the Spring Festival, many shoe factory orders have been filled, and even shoe companies are constrained by capacity, and some orders have to be pushed off.

Dai Jianrong, assistant general manager of Cheng Long shoe material Co., Ltd., has shown optimism for the shoe material market this year. "The recovery of the big market environment has made us see the hope of shoe material industry, and believe that this year's shoe material market will have a restorative growth."

On the one hand, the good domestic market has brought the market recovery, and on the other hand, it has benefited from the development of the new market for foreign trade in the past two years.

With the increasing pressure on domestic sales, many shoe materials enterprises have begun to try overseas markets. The new spring shoe soles is one of the typical representatives. The shoe material factory which has transferred to foreign trade has received satisfactory results, and even considered to invest more in a production line.

Ding Guozhi, general manager of the new spring shoe material Co., Ltd., said that in order to cope with the market downturn, the new spring shoe material has been gradually expanding its foreign trade market since the beginning of the year, with foreign trade as the main factor and domestic sales as the supplement. The proportion of export sales has increased from 20% to 70% in order to adapt to the market situation. The effect of this transformation is also quite obvious: before most of the competitors in the domestic market had to contract due to unstable orders, the production of Xin Quan Shun was very busy.

He admitted that two years ago, Xin Quan Shun worked hard to develop new channels of foreign trade, which made them find many opportunities. However, not every overseas market is so spectacular that it is mainly concentrated in some emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia and South America.

"Most of these markets are accompanied by the emerging market after the transfer of the shoe industry chain, they still lack matching in shoe material procurement, nor have they formed cluster advantages. We have opened up a sky of our own in emerging markets such as Mexico, Indonesia and Vietnam. Cheng Han Nonwoven Technology Co., Ltd., deputy general manager Liu Yang said.

In the face of market opportunities and challenges, how to save costs and bring forth new ideas has become a problem that shoe material industry must consider. In order to build a strong brand, shoe manufacturers have made great efforts in product development, brand promotion and other aspects. The advent of new products has not only realized the steady growth of their own profits, but also promoted the overall technological and technological progress of the industry.

Product innovation should be the most important. Ding Guoxian, general manager of Jinyi shoes material Co., Ltd., told reporters that the standardization of every production process and the optimization of every kind of raw material is the important guarantee for enterprises to stand firm. In addition to the quality and quantity of products, they have intensified their research and development efforts, seeking to break through the technological breakthroughs and produce "people without me" products, thereby creating brand names and gaining market share.

In this regard, Ding Minghui agreed, in an interview with reporters, he repeatedly stressed that shoe business to do the final fight or technology, new product development, this is necessary to adhere to, although aware of the new material development is currently difficult to promote in the market, but with the first step, only to know the way to go in the future.

"Previous shoe material enterprises are mainly connected with the purchasing personnel of the brand to see if there is any relevant production technology and reasonable price. Now, they are directly butting up with the brand research and development personnel, providing them with materials and making them choose. Therefore, now the shoe material supplier's independent research and development ability can enhance the initiative. " According to him, brand research and development personnel have general directions and requirements. Enterprises should provide corresponding materials according to their conditions, or enterprises can provide the latest research and development materials, and they will further develop and design according to the material characteristics of enterprises.

While insisting on product innovation, the market environment is severe, and the enterprises are beginning to profit from lean production. According to Ding Shu Hui, in order to make the products more competitive and more market value, Shu Hui has developed a new energy saving machine with the machine company. The original compound machine drum is only 1.5 meters ~1.8 meters, and the new compound machine's drum has been updated to 2.5 meters. Therefore, when the electricity consumption is almost unchanged, the output value can be 1/3 more than that of the original.

"The original fitting process is set up by the cart. Only more than 30 workers are used in this process. Now, after the production process is reset, we can change it into a fitting process in a small workshop. Only 6 people can create almost equal production efficiency." Ding Minghui, for example.

In addition to adhering to the innovation and profitability of shoe material industry, many enterprises rely on shoe material technology and use new technologies to expand production chains and tap the multipurpose use value of products, and strive to achieve the balance and development of enterprises through the expansion of industrial chains. Car seat, EVA disposable shoes and even decompression buffer are all bold attempts made by local shoe making enterprises to widen the industrial chain.

"Although it is not easy to expand the industrial chain, we need new channels, new teams and brand new marketing to cooperate with new products, rather than just producing products, but we have been insisting on trying and believing that we can develop them one day." Dai Jianrong said.

Though affected by various advantages, the shoe material market in Jinjiang is increasing rapidly, but many industry peers are not happy at all. There is no reason why the market warming has not been able to raise the operating profit of shoe material enterprises.

Ding Minghui recently received an offer from an old customer for an outdoor soles. According to the normal price, the lowest price of this sole should be 22 yuan per pair, so as to ensure some profits for sole enterprises. However, there are enterprises to the old customer quoted 18 yuan per pair of prices, this situation makes Ding Minghui worried: whether the shoe material market has just started to enter the price war.

"In the context of the continued slump in the domestic market, many domestic shoe manufacturers are turning to foreign trade. Even if there is a transfer order from Wenling to the market, the domestic market will pick up, but the price war will follow." Referring to this situation, Ding Minghui shook his head helplessly.

This also reflects a difficult problem facing shoe material enterprises from another aspect: product homogeneity.

"With the popularization of technology, most of the shoe materials required by general sports shoes can be provided. The homogenization of products has made many shoe materials enterprises lose their original advantages. The price war has already started in the shoe material market, coupled with the rising cost of purchasing raw materials, many shoe materials enterprises have suffered hardships. Moreover, the "labor shortage" that has appeared every year makes shoe materials enterprises have to increase employee benefits every year, so as to ensure that enterprises can start work on schedule. In addition, the increase in management fees and raw material costs, as well as the cost of changing machines in the timely manner as a result of technological innovation, has become increasingly prominent in the face of lower product prices. Ding Shuhui, general manager of Shu Hui shoe material Co., Ltd., told reporters.

The adjustment of the market environment of finished shoes leads to corresponding changes in the upstream supply chain. The speed is so fast that enterprises are caught off guard, so the cost cost is far greater than that of the former. In the semi annual report last year, Thailand shoes materials said that since last year, the main customers of Thailand's shares have changed the order mode from the average number of orders for each shoe in the past to "a small number of items", that is, to reduce the volume of a particular style and expand the range of styles.

"Because different styles of shoes require materials and molds are not the same, resulting in the company in the manufacturing process needs to constantly change the mold and materials, cleaning machine platform, the proficiency of workers has also greatly declined, the cost went up at once." The staff said that the domestic finished shoes were transformed from the previous "small quantity" multi order supply chain mode to "fine quantity, less quantity" fine operation mode, which brought the most direct consequence to the upstream enterprises.

"The mode has changed, but the price has not improved, which is very stressful for us." As another shoe material enterprise, Ye Yanxiong, sales manager of Jinyi shoes material Co., Ltd., has a deep feeling over the past two years. The product of "small quantity" is not good enough to do. Making small bills is not only a result of constant replacement of materials and moulds, but also a rise in cost. The more important thing is that the decline in the proficiency of workers leads to a rise in the cost of single parts, which is a new challenge for traditional shoe making enterprises. This may mean that the internal production process of enterprises is greatly moving, how to set up reasonable procedures, how to improve production efficiency through advanced machines and so on.