Ningbo'S Foreign Trade Under The Epidemic Situation

Surfing skateboards, outdoor tents... "These are all sold out!" looking at the dazzling department stores, Lin Cong's helpless booth. March was the peak season for foreign trade, but 70% orders were postponed this year. "If this goes on, I'm afraid the shipment volume will be cut by half in the two quarter."

The spread of the global epidemic, like the dust that erupted after the eruption of the volcano, has made Ningbo's foreign trade heavily covered with dust.

Mr. Lin's experience is the epitome of Ningbo's 2 million small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises.

By the end of March, 30.3% of the 911 foreign trade enterprises that were monitored by the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Commerce had been ordered to cancel, and 46.1% experienced delays. Especially in the daily necessities industry with non rigid demand, 50.5% of the most severely affected enterprises were canceled, and the orders that had been postponed were as high as 74.1%.

Some people said that the epidemic came, China played the first half, foreign played the second half, foreign trade people played the whole game. But Ningbo's foreign trade people say they have prepared for overtime or even penalties.

Lin Cong is a trader dealing in daily groceries in Yinzhou. He never thought that the outbreak of the outbreak early this year would have such a huge impact.

"We officially go to work in mid February, but at that time the factory reemployment rate was only 50%, basically no goods available." Lin Cong said that during this period, the company received orders from time to time, but was unable to deliver the goods on time.

Meanwhile, the domestic epidemic situation has gradually improved, and capacity is basically restored by March. But when he was filled with joy and thought that he was finally coming to spring, the outbreak of the global epidemic broke out, and it was hard for him to earn the money to swim to the shore.

"There is a large order of outdoor appliances in the United States, originally said to be shipped in March, the guests said to be postponed to March next year." Mr. Lin frowned. "But I have already paid 30% deposit, worth 1 million yuan. They say that the direct extension of one year means that I have frozen the money. There is also a German business hyper, clearly giving a one month extension of payment plan.

Then, there is an endless stream of orders to cancel or postpone orders. Mr. Lin found that his order of nearly $8 million was postponed for 70%, and the volume of shipments in the two quarter is expected to be cut simultaneously. What's more, the shipping date has been delayed to 7-8 months. When to ship is still a problem.

Li Mu, a lamp manufacturer in Yuyao, is as anxious as Lin Cong.

More than a month ago, Li Mu was still rushing around for the purchase of materials. "Many upstream enterprises in Anhui and other places have not fully resumed their work, and the supply of materials is not up to date." Li Mu said that they paid no cost at all to ensure normal production, not only for suppliers, but also for workers to help in the past.

However, the important customers of the company are in the European and American countries, and the new orders drop suddenly, seeking the situation of the suppliers looking for materials, and soon being replaced by "compression production" even if the suppliers reduce their prices.

"Our current orders can basically guarantee half a year's production, but the two quarter and subsequent orders may not even reach 20% in the past year." Li Mu said.

Not only that, they also encountered some worries.

Lin Cong, an old customer who worked for over ten years, moved forward all the shipping plans last year in order to catch up before December 15th. This has cost a lot of money, and also led to a large backlog of inventory. It never occurred to me that not only did not usher in substantial sales, but it became worse because of the epidemic.

"We have been pressing him to pay, but the goods in the warehouse have not been cleared up, and their capital chain has been broken. Originally, we received $5-6 in remittances per week, which has recently been interrupted by severe epidemics.

Uncertainties in overseas markets exacerbate the risks of trade. "Many SMEs are afraid to take orders, and even if they hold orders, they are not sure whether to start production." Ying Xiuzhen, vice president of Zhongji Ningbo group, said, "if there are 5 million dollars in front of us, if the total amount is paid to the factory, it will be nearly $10 million. Is this business going to be done or not? "

Facing the foreign trade order, the dilemma is the most real situation of the small and medium-sized enterprises.

"I sleep almost every day after 1 p.m., just to see the news in the US and Europe, so as to judge what the company should do next." In this way, day after day, worried that the epidemic will continue to spread and look forward to the early termination of the epidemic, two rutting will run out in Li Mu's heart.

Without order, Li Mu was not idle. He believes that the epidemic will accelerate the adjustment of the global supply chain.

"The most urgent task for the company is to protect the sales advantages of overseas subsidiaries. Insist on liaison and serve good customers, such as introducing Chinese epidemic prevention experience to customers, donate masks and other epidemic prevention materials, and give them the necessary humanitarian care and assistance. It will also be guided by future needs and discuss and share ideas and research and development processes with new customers.

"In this process, we still can not relax a bit in R & D, we are concentrating on R & D efforts to speed up product innovation." Li Mu said that the company's own R & D projects have created more than 7 of the economic benefits, far exceeding the custom-made projects. The most important point is that they have been carrying out the intelligent assembly line transformation. At present, a production line has been put into use, and the efficiency is almost 5 times that of the artificial assembly line.

At the same time, they have already started the efforts of OEM in Eastern Europe, and intend to establish their own factories after understanding the local laws and regulations and supply chain.

In the last half month, Mr. Lin has also been busy with the docking of epidemic prevention materials. Under the office building of the company, a UPS international express vehicle is waiting for the small batch of civilian masks to be packaged in the form of a trip to support the European and American customers.

"At the end of February, we asked American customers if they wanted to send masks. They said they didn't need it at the time. In a very short time, we are also making up a gap in shipments by relying on epidemic prevention products. It is estimated that there will be more shipments for protective products in April. "

At the same time, Lin Cong is also considering the adoption of Tmall flagship stores and other domestic sales channels to achieve "walking on multiple legs". At present, the company's cash flow is acceptable. He believes that waiting for the end of the epidemic will usher in the day when overseas sales rebounded.

Li Mu also believes that the epidemic will be controlled sooner or later, and that success will eventually favor people who are prepared. "After the economic recovery, we are able to win the favor of customers and gain greater market share by products with higher cost performance."

Europe and the United States, a large number of mall, factories shut down, project halt - Sea Road temporarily blocked. This is particularly similar to the global financial crisis in 2008.

A foreign trade enterprise is associated with many businesses on the upstream and downstream businesses. That is, in that year, many foreign trade enterprises began to choose "export to domestic sales" to save themselves, but they were everywhere.

In 2008, BEIFA Ningbo, the largest maker of Olympic commodities, invested nearly 200 million yuan to build the largest Olympic commodity logistics, marketing and supply base in Asia.

In the same year, Chuang Yuan culture opened the first "paper era" store in Ningbo's golden land and righteousness Avenue, and once there were sixty or seventy direct outlets in China, but eventually suspended the new projects in the domestic market in 2014.

After talking about the war of transformation, Qiu Zhiming, chairman of BEIFA, was deeply troubled. "It is not difficult to make a brand, but it is very difficult to make valuable brand. Besides capital, it takes time, not tens of millions of dollars a year, and there is no talent pool.

Deng Jianjun, deputy director of Chuang Yuan culture, said Chuang yuan tried the water market for the first time. On the one hand, the market of related products had yet to be nurtured. On the other hand, the characteristics of high-end products decided that the input of channels was difficult to decline.

But the early test of water will never be the end. They are aware of the difficulties faced by domestic sales channels, not only by "borrowing power" but also by "cohesion".

In 2018, Chuangyuan culture restarted the domestic market development plan, aiming at different product positioning, and started several self created brand names such as "girl's heart election" and "Love Island".

"This time, in order to lay out and lock in the domestic market, we invested 3 domestic operated companies and 1 funds to provide financial support and channel protection for the domestic market, and the scale of investment increased by 50 million yuan." Deng Jianjun introduced.

In addition to opening self brand online shops through Taobao and many other platforms, Chuang Yuan culture also provides customized products for the ecology of NetEase cloud and millet. Moreover, with the expansion of the audience, they will also try to contact some professionals to carry live goods and so on.

In his view, the new generation of consumers has strong consumption ability, high tolerance, and more emphasis on personalized expression. At the same time, the sinking of e-commerce channels allows consumers to directly face factories, and then design, purchase, produce and deliver products according to requirements.

Qiu Zhiming is preparing to combine more than 380 enterprises in the upstream and downstream to build an Internet cloud consumption platform called "enjoying life". In the "enjoying life" Internet cloud consumption platform, 5 billion yuan business coupons and 50 million fair masks are issued to stimulate consumption potential and stimulate market demand.

He reached a unified opinion with all the enterprises in the supply chain. During this time, we all made little money. First we should feed the workers and survive first. The difference between the retail price and the membership price is deducted by consumption coupons. The deduction rate can reach 50% to 70%.

"Our current aim is to sacrifice profits, protect orders, protect employment, protect cash flow and ensure social stability. It is imperative for enterprises to stick to their teeth and stick to their guns, so that we can get past the possibility." Qiu Zhiming said.

11 years ago, during the financial crisis, Du Yuzhou, President of the China Textile Industry Association, said that when the industry was at a low ebb, leading enterprises must boost their morale, and lead more SMEs to leap forward in front of them.

This test has been tested not only by the ability of a foreign trade enterprise to resist risks and to turn to the market, but also to the examination of a city's foreign trade.

In March 30th, Ningbo held a teleconference on stable foreign trade in the city. It pioneered ten new policies of "stable foreign trade" in the whole country, raising nearly 200 million yuan of new financial funds to help enterprises, and strive to cash in to the enterprises concerned as soon as possible.

Lin Cong worked with China's Ningbo branch in the long term, and received a compensation of more than 1200 yuan in April. This payment really helped him to revitalize the working capital and successfully recovered many losses.

These specific actions can not only reduce the threshold for small and medium enterprises to avoid the risk of order cancellation or delay, but also help enterprises grasp the business trend of buyers in time, and lay a solid foundation for the steady resumption of production and development after the outbreak. If financial instruments can insert insurance belts into enterprises, then the "cloud match" of online exhibitions will answer the question of where the order comes from.

Some companies who want to test the water business live and social business can participate in Ningbo's "thousand enterprises and 10000 products" business cloud promotion series in April 9th. They will dock with the live line business. In April 10th, the city commercial bureau will also build a platform to carry out a "joint video conference with Ningbo enterprises".

It is the machine that passes through danger. For the Ningbo foreign trade people who are going to fill the whole field, they have survived the difficult spring and have to think about how to spend the summer, autumn and winter.

Only by making preparations better can we wait for the next spring.

(subject to request, Li Mu and Lin Cong are alias).