60% Children'S Garments In China Have Been Born Here For 20 Years, And Achieved The Success Of Zhili Town, Huzhou.

In early April, a child model "Niu Niu incident" rapidly fermented on the Internet before making the Zhili town of Huzhou, Zhejiang entered the public's field of vision.

"Niu Niu incident" occurred in Hangzhou, but because the mother and daughter lived in Zhili town on weekdays, the small town known for children's clothing was involved in the center of public opinion. Feng Haiming, head of Liaison Section of the children's clothing industry development office of Zhili Town People's government, said, "positive thinking means that weaving has a great influence."

In fact, in Zhili, the children's model shooting industry is only dependent on the supporting industry developed by children's clothing industry. According to incomplete statistics, sales of children's clothing in Zhili in 2018 amounted to 55 billion yuan. At present, there are 13000 children's clothing production and processing units in the city, 7000 electricity suppliers, and two thousand or three thousand garment accessories.

The children's clothing produced in Zhili is mainly sold domestically, and more than 60% children's clothing in the domestic market is made in weaving. In Feng Haiming's words, Zhili is a big Mac carrier in the field of children's wear. "Only you can't imagine that you can't do it."

A town coming out of a pillow

Wuxing Avenue is the main road of Zhili Town, connecting Huzhou, Wuxing district government and Zhili town.

Zhili town is under the jurisdiction of Huzhou Wuxing district. Starting from Wuxing Prefecture, driving the southern Taihu bridge and driving east for twenty minutes, you can reach this prosperous "children's clothing town".

In 80s, there appeared a group of "10000 yuan households" who made children's clothing business. In 1995, Zhili town was approved by the 11 national ministries and commissions as the pilot unit for the comprehensive reform of small towns in China. In 2018, Zhili town launched a series of urban spanformation initiatives, attracting a number of central level media to report, weaving began to emerge.

In the past thirty years, Zhili has developed from a small rural area to a population of 450 thousand. And the northern side of Zhili town is adjacent to Taihu. Zhu Huiqiang spent his childhood in the countryside near Taihu.

Zhu Huiqiang is chairman and general manager of Zhejiang non figurative dress limited company (hereinafter referred to as "no analogy"). The company is a children's clothing entity integrating R & D, production and sales. Its children wear brand BCOBI and children's wear wholesale brand "open MENOIR". At present, the scale and capacity of the enterprise are in the forefront of weaving.

Zhu Huiqiang dressed in fashion, painted black eyes, left Korean style air bangs, wearing a black legged wide leg pants, holding a FENDI handbag. His "no analogy" has always been a family business. Zhu Huiqiang is the founder of the company and a leader in the direction of the whole enterprise. Zhu Huiqiang's sister is responsible for the research and development of children's clothing.

So far, most of Zhu Huiqiang's life is closely related to children's clothing, but his origins with the clothing industry still go back to earlier.

Zhu Huiqiang's first job was in the supply and marketing system of one of the biggest chain stores in the country. During this period, he met a group of businessmen selling sewing machines, and his interest in the clothing industry was beginning to dawn.

In 1994, the Changshu shopping mall opened, and Zhu Huiqiang decided to go to sea to do business and come out to do it himself. He made a stall in the investment city, and made some adult clothes and trousers from his home weaving shop to sell on the market.

Cai Jianguo is Zhu Huiqiang's brother-in-law. At present, it can not be likened to the factories and logistics centers in weaving. Cai Jianguo recalled to the interface fashion. Zhu Huiqiang left his home in Taihu on 90s to find a shop in Changshu to make an adult suit wholesale, while Zhu Huiqiang's wife found a sewing machine to do it at home and sent it to Changshu.

From the beginning of the clothing business 25 years ago, Zhu brothers and sisters have been making such a clear division of labor: Zhu Huiqiang is close to the market while his sister is responsible for making clothes. Zhu brothers and sisters have never studied designs in their own childhood, "they are groping out by themselves", Zhu Huiqiang told the interface fashion.

Before that, the older generation in Zhili mainly sold embroidered pillow. "Selling bedding at that time was carried out by a pole." Cai Jianguo said.

Many of the older generation of Zhili people went out to do business from the only 0.58 square kilometers of flat street, and for a lifetime, Cai Jianguo's father did all his life. Zhu Huiqiang also inherited the embroidery skills of the older generation, but they chose to create a completely different career.

The tradition of embroidery is still preserved in Zhili Town, and children begin to learn embroidery from interest classes. Photo source: Xinhua Town today still maintains the tradition of embroidery in Zhili Town, and children begin to learn embroidery from interest classes. Photo source: Xinhua News Agency

Recalling the opportunity to spanition from adult clothing to children's clothing business, Zhu Huiqiang said that stall business was long and wanted to sell clothes on its own facade.

In Changshu, when buying a booth was about one hundred thousand, he tried to save money, but by the time he made 100 thousand, the appearance had risen by about one million. His instinct was so passive.

At this time, in the 90s of last century, the children's clothing industry in Zhili began to take shape. According to a previous report by Xinhua news agency, "a group of people who dare to eat crabs are keen to enter into more profitable children's clothing industry, and many million households have been born."

Master the skills of sewing embroidered pillow, and the weaving people have unique advantages in making children's clothing. Zhu Huiqiang decided to change, "children's clothing style is not complicated, but requires more embroidery, which can be applied to children's embroidery."

With the development of the industry, the "Zhili economic open area" was established in 1992. In 1995, as a pilot unit for comprehensive reform of small towns throughout the country, Zhili was encouraged and guided by policies. A group of Zhili people who had been away from home and traveled north and South were returning home to start their own business as children's clothing.

"When adults were dressed up in Changshu, they didn't make children's clothing at that time. So every year, children's day on June 1 will also make children's clothing, so naturally they will get married with children's clothing."

As a result, Zhu Huiqiang, who had been unwilling to rent a small booth for a small business, joined the returning army in 1998 to turn into a children's clothing business.

A history of Chinese children's wear

Zhu Huiqiang's exploration in the children's wear industry and the development of Zhujia children's clothing business is a typical evolution history of Chinese children's clothing enterprises.

After returning to weaving, Zhu Huiqiang used the first pot of gold he made in Changshu to rent two stores in Xinhua Road, "after the volume increased and rented four stores, there were six altogether," recalled Zhu Huiqiang. "At that time, the whole weaving mill made up about 500 children's clothing."

As the output continues to expand, the number of agents in the national wholesalers is increasing. Zhu realized that their children's clothing did not need to be displayed on the street facade. The cost of the rental facade was always higher than that of the factory built by themselves. So Zhu took the lead in the Zhili town in 2000 to take a thirteen mu of land to build a private factory.

There is more than one Zhu in this way.

It can not be compared to the present business park located on the West Changan road in Zhili Town, and there are many medium-sized and above children's clothing enterprises on this road. There are several other ways to encircle the middle and upper scale children's wear Enterprise Park, including the Xiang Road and the Ankang West Road. However, the southern part of Zhili town is another scene.

The shops on both sides of Wuxing Avenue are uniform, mostly two to three storefront shops. Shop names are hung outside the front door, children's clothing is displayed on the first floor, and the two and third floors are usually R & D rooms or production workshops.

And along the Wuxing Road South, there are more and more crisscross streets in this area. These children's wear brands have gradually formed the advantages of the cluster.

In the eyes of his brother-in-law Cai Jianguo, Zhu family had a very business mind, but his uncle Zhu Huiqiang had a quick mind, but he used to be very timid. Unlike Zhu Huiqiang, he is not slow, and his voice is always very different. Cai Jianguo, a veteran soldier, is a standard doer.

"I married my wife in 2000. We got married in the first month, and in the second half of 00 years, I went to town and got a piece of land. Cai Jianguo recalls.

In 2003, Zhujia has become the first enterprise in Zhili town to own an independent children's wear Industrial Park. After moving into the workshop, we can not compare the design and R & D team with the brand products of children's clothing.

"(category) after the completion of the previous quarter of three styles, five styles, and then we have a quarter of 50, 100 styles; at this time, we need the wholesalers of the provincial generation in the wholesale market to help us decorate our own independent wholesale image shop."

Therefore, Chu Jia's first wholesale clothing brand "open MENOIR" came into being. The establishment of the wholesale clothing system has made the whole brand of children's clothing different. Cai Jianguo probably made nearly two million of that brand in that year.

With independent research and development factories, it is necessary to establish their own R & D team. With the increasing purchasing power of Chinese consumers, parents invest more and more money and energy in their children. Unlike previous younger brothers wearing their elder brother's clothes, a new generation of parents expect their children to be able to dress well. Zhu Huiqiang realized this. In 2003, he introduced a group of fashion designers from Guangdong, which is already well-developed in the children's clothing industry.

In this way, the scale of weaving industry continues to expand, and migrant workers, such as designers such as Guangdong, are also actively and passively rushing into Zhili town. Today, the population of migrant workers in Zhili town has reached one hundred thousand. From factory workers to business owners, there are outsiders in every aspect of the industrial chain from factory to enterprise management and operation.

This town, which is only 90 square kilometers, has 450 thousand people, most of whom are outsiders. Feng Haiming's work notes read "the five dominant aces in Zhili town". Among them, "tolerance is not exclusive" is one of them.

Qiu Guoxiang from Suzhou and Li Peiquan from Hubei just proved this point.

An active foreign businessman

Qiu Guoxiang is executive director and general manager of Huzhou Hou Xing Clothing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hou Xing clothing"), and Li Peiquan is the supervisor and investor of the company. According to the data of the sky eye, Hou Xing clothing is actually the main body of "Lin Qian international" in the mainland, and "Lin Qian international" was first founded by Li Peiquan in Foshan, Guangdong in 2006.

Qiu Guoxiang's children's clothing business started in weaving. He came to weaving in 2005, and the LORD made boy's clothes. The veteran Li Peiquan was the first to do wholesale stall business in Beijing. In 2006, she went to Foshan to make a girl's clothing business in South China. After three years, he felt that Foshan had come to a bottleneck, and all aspects of the development could be limited after that. In 2009, the company moved to Zhili.

Zhili children's clothing industry entered a high-speed development period in the first ten years of twenty-first Century. Unlike Guangdong, Fujian and other manufacturers, "first pay, then change goods" business mode, weaving children's clothing manufacturers are willing to "pay no money, but also to change goods."

Children's clothing wholesale customers gradually feel that it is difficult to get goods in Foshan, Guangdong.

Over time, weaving became more and more wholesalers preferred place of purchase. In addition, the policy of weaving and weaving places supports and consummate the industrial chain. The continuous flow of tourists is forcing the children's clothing manufacturers, including Fujian and Guangdong, to go to Zhili.

Among these out of town enterprises, a group of entrepreneurs who originally worked in retail and wholesale were especially outstanding in Zhili. They are sensitive to the prevailing trend in the market and have good judgement on products. They are regarded as a group of active entrepreneurs.

Outsiders Qiu Guoxiang and Li Peiquan have many years of experience in children's clothing development and "mixed stalls", and the market has a keen sense of smell. Children's clothing, like adult clothing, has undergone different design styles. From Japanese and Korean leisure to European and American pastoral style, children's wear has been tried all over the world.

In 2011, Qiu Guoxiang's men's clothing business, which operated separately, has reached three million four thousand a year. But Qiu Guoxiang, who was still in the wholesale mode, took a trip to Korea every month. This is also a common practice in the wholesale mode of weaving.

But Qiu Guoxiang has been worried about this model for a long time. He instinctively realized that research and development should go upstream. Qiu Guoxiang's worries are exacerbated by the expansion of the scale. "Once the sales volume goes down, you may not have a guarantee for these three million pieces."

Qiu Guoxiang hopes that his business can go up to a higher level in terms of sales and quality. Li Peiquan just had the same idea with Qiu Guoxiang. The two people clicked together on a dinner party in 2013 and decided to "join together".

Qiu and Li have registered the "Hou Xing Clothing Co., Ltd." with the shareholding ratio of 3:7. Meanwhile, the brand name of "Lin Qian international" has been retained. In this way, "Lin Qian international" decided to play its original expertise -- Research and development of cotton and children's clothing brand.

At present, there are three children's clothing brands including AMILRIS, Lin Qian LQ and mussel Tang BB.T, and the three have a clearer distinction in style. AMILRIS is a simple fashion style, positioning 1-12 year old children, Lin Qian LQ walks the pastoral wind route, and the clam clam Tang BB.T goes back to the ancient style.

Now, in the Zhili Town, mention cotton and linen children's clothing. The first thing people think of is Linqian international. Qiu Li and his colleagues first discovered cotton and linen children's clothing in South Korea. "They should feel comfortable and have a sense of hierarchy." At the same time, taking into account the particularity of children's clothing - mostly for mothers to buy for their children, so when cotton and linen fabrics began to become popular among young parents, Qiu and Li thought they could do cotton and flax children's wear.

Relying on fabric innovation, Lin Qian international, which wants to spanform from wholesale to retail, has successfully attracted end customers. This year is the fifth year of the Lin Qian's international spanformation, Qiu Guoxiang said that the sales of the enterprise are increasing at the rate of 10%-15% each year.

"Last year, we said 1.5 billion, we did not make money, we intend to produce 1.7, 1.8 billion, and not to make money this year," Qiu Guoxiang said, "but we do not lose money, we are flat."

It is the internal migration of these outsiders to improve the industrial chain of the textile children's clothing industry.

"At the very beginning, we had some styles that we could not do in our hands. Why? Because of the different processes, we can find all the fabrics and accessories now. " Zhu Huiqiang believes that the business in the field has improved the fashion of children's clothing and enriched the category of children's clothing.

Another famous chain children's clothing brand in the Zhili Town, today's Tong Wang, moved from Zhejiang Nanxun to the Zhili children's wear Industrial Park in 2004. Zhu Xingen, the boss of today's Tong Wang, told the interface fashion that he also thought that the enterprises that came from Guangdong and Fujian had brought the original industry chain.

And businesses from all over the world are gradually formed.

Local chambers of commerce are very active in Zhili, and there are hundreds of business members below each chamber. The role of merchants is to help workers and enterprises from all parts to solve problems in local life, employment and children's schooling.

Take the Northeast chamber of Commerce as an example, the chamber of commerce is mainly to help the northeastern migrant workers and enterprises to live and develop in Zhili. Moreover, the early northeastern people contracted most of the logistics business in weaving, and now Ms. Meng, who is in charge of financial affairs in a children's clothing factory in Zhili, tells the interface fashion.

During the Northeast laid-off in 90s, she and her family went down from northeast to south, and finally settled in Zhili.

The throes of spanformation

It seems that Qiu Guoxiang and Li Peiquan choose to shift to the chain retail brand model now, but they have experienced a period of spanformation pains.

In particular, Qiu and Li duer once adopted a strategy of rapid expansion of chain stores in 2013, but at that time, the foundation did not play well. According to Qiu Guoxiang, a year lost about 20000000, and bought a lesson: "so shop can not expand at once, and the whole thing is going slowly." So now we have a plan that allows only 50 to 80 homes a year, and no more than 80.

Steady growth is the development strategy of Lin Qian international after taking a detour.

Interestingly, "no analogy" on the wall of the new industrial park office building is also attached to the historical development map of the enterprise, but at the time of 2009, the node showed a slogan: "failure to succeed quickly is equivalent to failure". However, similar to Lin Qian international, the "incomparable metaphor" that had enjoyed five years' wholesale mode dividends also had a sense of crisis at this stage.

Aware of the inventory backlog problem in the wholesale generation mode, Zhu Huiqiang is determined to spanform the vertically managed brand chain store mode. Realizing that it is difficult for wholesale brands to upgrade their brands, Zhujia made great efforts to reform and decided to set up another brand line.

"Rather ingenious, it should be when the child started to grow up to the age stage and suddenly discovered that the child had no clothes to wear," Zhu Huiqiang told the interface fashion. In 2008, there were no children's clothing brands suitable for children of 1.3 meter or four height, and the market blank was perceived. Zhu had launched the "unlikable" chain brand for locating older children and taking the light tide brand route.

Coincidentally, Zhu's spanformation has also paid a "big price".

The first year of the establishment of the brand experienced a discarded T-shirt crisis. Due to the lack of operation experience of retail brand, Zhu Hui Qiang and his team did not consider that the top fabrics supplied to wholesale brands would not be suitable for new retail brands.

After the first batch of ready-made garments entered the market, Zhu Huiqiang found that the T-shirts with tens of thousands of items reflected by consumers appeared to be "pulling the collar one by one, recovering the elastic force, sucking two times of water, and shrinking the collar". Aware of the problem of wet fastness and dry weight of the fabric, Zhu Huiqiang withdrew a large number of T-shirts from the market, and finally about 200 thousand T-shirts were scrapped.

During the period of spanformation, it can not be compared with the establishment of an operation center in Qianjiang New Town, Hangzhou, which supports the development strategy of the national brand chain store. According to Zhu Huiqiang, "no analogy can be drawn". The net number of brand chain stores in the country is about 600 this year. The sales volume of children's clothing this year is about 23 million pieces.

Through the throes of spanformation, it can not be likened to the relocation of headquarters to newly built industrial parks in 2018. The company has built third acres of land in 68 yuan, and is located in the headquarters of the listed enterprises in Zhili.

Transformation is not easy, Qiu Guoxiang confessed to the interface fashion. Feng Haiming believes that in addition to having faith in spanformation, the most important thing is to have enough capital to support spanformation.

For Zhujiahe and Qiu Guoxiang, who are relatively large in size, well prepared in spanition and relatively abundant in capital, the spanformation is still difficult. It is not difficult to understand that at present, in the Zhili Town, those children who are missing the last wave of spanformation or the children's clothing factory, which still takes the wholesale Province as the main channel, will only become more confused in the current market shuffling period.

Elimination and Innovation -- the future of Zhili

The investment analysis and forecast report of China children's wear market for 2017-2021 years shows that in 2017, the scale of children's wear market in China was 159 billion 700 million yuan. It is estimated that in the five years (2017-2021) the average annual compound growth rate is about 8.05%, and the market scale will reach 217 billion 700 million yuan in 2021.

Although China has opened a comprehensive second child in 2016, the number of new born population in recent years is less than expected, with a downward trend every year. But even so, China's children's wear market is becoming more and more lively.

On the one hand, many domestic clothing brands such as Semir, Hai Lan's home, Taiping bird, Jiangnan Buyi, Metersbonwe and so on have joined the market competition for children's clothing by creating sub brands or mergers and acquisitions at home and abroad. In terms of international brands, GAP, ZARA, J, Crew and other fast fashion brands, as well as FENDI, Marc Jacobs, Armani and other luxury brands developed children's wear lines are also struggling to seize the market for children's wear.

The fundamental reason is that although the birth rate is not high, the big brands dare to join the battle, or they can see the strong consumption power of the new generation of parents.

In the face of ready made clothes brands to beat children's wear market, Feng Haiming did not think that weaving should be overly worried. "What the clothing brands want to consolidate is the original clothing customers, while the weaving is aimed at a broader mass market, and the scale and output are different."

However, Feng Haiming also admitted that due to the overall macroeconomic slowdown, consumer behavior tends to be rational and the birth rate of newborns is declining, the children's clothing industry in Zhili has been in a rather difficult period for two years.

For some children's clothing businesses or small factories in Zhili Town, the summer break season is nearly two months earlier this year. According to past practice, in order to catch delivery before summer, factories usually finish production before June, and workers can have one or two months off. This year, many factories have been on holiday since the end of April.

Wang Yuan resigned from the factory last year and started a dripping car driver. He and his wife came from Anqing, Anhui. He told the interface fashion that his wife returned home to take her child at the end of April.

"Factory orders do not receive this year, and wages are cut by half this year," says Wang Yuan. When the year is good, two couples earn seventy thousand or eighty thousand, and this year they earn forty thousand at most. "So I quit my job."

Ms. Meng's factory situation is similar. She said, "our factory's capital chain is almost broken, and it is going to go bankrupt."

In the eyes of these two or three individual shops, Zhili is experiencing a wave of closure, and the situation is not optimistic. These wholesale business models of "low, small, scattered" children's clothing factory due to the entire wholesale channel atrophy, the cost is growing, but sales are declining.

Feng Haiming said that individual businesses are the largest group affected by changes in the external environment. "He (order) is a group of people who walk away from the terminal, and then the provincial generation (wholesale) also takes away a batch." That is to say, the order of individual industrial and commercial households is actually spanferred to other business mode enterprises.

But this part of the unsustainable enterprise is only a small proportion of the total volume of the children's clothing enterprises.

Feng Haiming told the interface fashion that under the downward trend of the overall economic situation, 30% of the children's clothing enterprises in Zhili town can make profits this year, 20% of them are flat, and 20%-30% is close to the profit and loss balance line.

This means that the children's clothing industry in Zhili town is a "Rugby" structure, so that it can really make a shock after so many years, under which the whole industrial structure can still be steady. Feng Haiming said.

Zhu Huiqiang, who is neither "comparable" nor Qiu Guoxiang of "Lin Qian international", said that their businesses had little influence on the macro environment under the existing retail mode. They are more concerned about what to do next and how to do it.

In the face of rapidly changing children's wear market, it can not be likened to another adjustment this year. With the gradual upgrading of the supply chain of the park, the company began to spanform from the former 100% production futures mode to the "futures + spot" mode. "Now we will make 70% of futures and make 30% of the stock. We may have 50% futures and 50% spot cash starting next year." Zhu Huiqiang revealed to the interface fashion.

In addition, it is about to enter the "no analogy" of the China's children's clothing listed company's headquarters garden in Zhili. Because the children's clothing industry in Zhili has been dominated by wholesale production for a long time, and the overall brand is relatively low. If we want to compete with external brands, we must further enhance the brand influence. Feng Haiming said frankly, "basically, this leading enterprise has made some policies to enable them to reach a high level. It is possible to go public and introduce famous children's clothing enterprises across the country.

China's children's wear listed enterprises headquarters park has now signed up for 6 well-known children's clothing enterprises such as ABC, 1001 night, China game, DAS Sha, Yue Yue, Polo Sport and so on. The platform aims at children's clothing enterprises with the background of listed companies and the potential of listing.

With the support of the government and the successful listing of Guangdong's children's clothing enterprise "angel", Zhu Huiqiang will be more optimistic about the possibility of listing.

Multi channel sales and development of more brands in the "no analogy" development plan. Therefore, Zhu Huiqiang believes that the listing will be beneficial to a famous company of our own, and also to our famous brand added value.

In addition, "no analogy" and "Lin Qian international", which have undergone spanformation one after another, have never really set foot in the field of electricity supplier. But at a closed door meeting in May, an electronic business platform located in Hangzhou, which locates "block chain + network red live", is trying to convince that it can not be metaphor.

These children's wear is the two generation of children's clothing enterprises that are or are planning to gradually grow up. They learn from the business platform, and bring the more innovative management concept into the digital spanformation that the enterprise will soon face.