How does Shandong Caoxian Clothing turn traffic into “retention”?
In May 2021, Caoxian County, Shandong Province became popular on the Internet because of a magical short video calling Mai. This small town in southwestern Shandong has been ridiculed as the “center of the universe” and the “Beijing, Shanghai and Guangcao”. That popularity made more and more people know that Caoxian County is not just a meme, it is really something: the country’s largest performance costumeindustrial cluster and the country’s largest Hanfu production base .
In May 2023, Caoxian County once again became the focus of attention due to the surge in orders for performance costumes and Hanfu. Data from the Caoxiane-commerce logistics center shows that affected by the explosion of sales of costumes for Children’s Day on Children’s Day, the volume of shipments has surged. At the peak, the volume of shipments in a single day can reach 750,000 pieces (excluding data from SF Express and Postal Service).
After two years, how does Cao County make good use of traffic dividends to develop characteristic industries and carry out industrial transformation and upgrading? On the eve of June 1st, Qilu Evening News·Qilu Yi The interview team of “HighQuality Development and Strengthening the County” visited Caoxian County and revealed how Internet celebrity cities can transform traffic into “retained volume”.
“June 1st” performance costumes sold out
Hanfu grew 60% year-on-year in the first quarter
“On the eve of June 1st this year, our performance costumes sold out immediately.” Ren Qingsheng, secretary of the Party branch of Dinglou Village, Daji Town, Cao County, said that from around April 10 this year, performance costumes began to enter the peak sales season, with an average of It can sell 7,000 to 8,000 units a day, but in early May, there was already a shortage of code and stock. On May 30, when the reporter came to Dinglou Village, Daji Town, Cao County, Heze, Ren Qingsheng was counting inventory in his warehouse. In the warehouse, the costumes on the shelves are almost sold out. He said that his family’s performance costume sales this year have increased orders by 30%-40% compared with the same period in previous years, setting a record high in recent years.
Daji Town in Caoxian County is the largest performance costume production base in the country. For performance costume merchants, “June 1” is equivalent to their Double Eleven. “We predicted that sales would be better this year, so we prepared a lot of goods in advance, but we didn’t expect the popularity to be beyond imagination.” Ren Qingsheng said that on the eve of this year’s “June 1”, the popularity of the costumes can be described as “exaggerated” To describe it, he gave an example: Many merchants in the village took clothing off the shelves after selling out, and some even closed their stores.
This year, it’s not just performance costumes that are selling out in Caoxian County. With the strong recovery of the national tourism market, Hanfu has become an indispensable cultural element at various tourism festivals. This is a rare opportunity for Cao County, which accounts for one-third of the national Hanfu market.
The first-floor exhibition hall of Caoxian Avant-garde Han and Tang Dynasty Clothing, located in Daji Town, displays various styles of Hanfu, and there is an endless stream of customers coming to the exhibition hall to buy. “In May alone, our Hanfu sales reached more than 2 million yuan. Many people from surrounding scenic spots couldn’t wait to go online and came directly to Caoxian to snap up purchases. Some even took away the sample clothes from the models.” Caoxian Yang Wei, the person in charge of avant-garde Han and Tang costumes, said. Meng Xiaoxia, general manager of Chenfei Clothing in Caoxian County, told reporters that the supply of products is now in short supply. Some customers directly come to Caoxian County to stay for several days in order to get the products as soon as possible.
The spurt of orders has also allowed upstream companies to sense business opportunities. Some printing companies have invested in new digital printing equipment, doubling production efficiency. Chen Jichao, head of Kao Printing Company, told reporters that the company has installed 7 new digital printing machines this year, and its production efficiency has increased from the original 20,000 meters per day to 40,000 meters per day. What is the concept of 40,000 meters of printed fabric? He made a calculation: it is equivalent to producing 10,000 sets of Hanfu per day.
“It is not only efficiency that is improved. Consumers pursue the elegant feeling of Hanfu. The original embroidery process is relatively heavy and lacks the elegant feeling. The printing process basically does not take up the weight of the fabric, and the patterns can be diversified, which is more popular with consumers. Welcome,” he said.
Data shows that in the first quarter of 2023 alone, Caoxian Hanfu’s order volume increased by more than 60% year-on-year. Sales reached 1.038 billion yuan, a record high.
Bringing originality
Hiring a designer with a monthly salary of 20,000 yuan
On the eve of this year’s Children’s Day, an original performance costume from Ren Qingsheng’s family, the beaded little red dress, made a strong breakthrough from more than 100 products and sold 300,000 sets. This also made Ren Qingsheng more determined to take an original path.
Due to the fierce homogeneous competition in the performance clothing market, Ren Qingsheng realized that if product quality was not improved, the road would only become narrower and narrower. Therefore, in recent years, the company has launched two to three original products every year.
Yang Wei also said that among the children’s performance clothes this year, a children’s Hanfu designed by the company that requires embroidery is very popular, which shows that consumers’ demand for pattern styles and quality has also increased.
Market demand forces the industry to continuously upgrade. It turns out that Caoxian’s performance costumes and Hanfu have been criticized for their poor quality, plagiarism and other issues.
Yang Wei said frankly that in the past, they were all small family workshops with rough production, a lot of plagiarism and counterfeiting, and no quality control. In the short term, they may not have much impact, but over time, they can easily be eliminated by the market. He recalled an experience when an order was canceled due to poor quality. At that time, it was a batch of more than 6,000 sets.After the foreign trade order for performance clothing arrived, the customer felt that there were threads, the stitches were of different sizes, and the location of the mark was not satisfactory, so he directly returned the order. That chargeback cost them hundreds of thousands of yuan, and they also lost customers.
Since that time, Yang Wei has learned a lesson and realized the importance of quality. In recent years, he has gradually transformed from a family workshop to a corporate operation. “It used to be that when the factory sent clothes, we just counted them and basically didn’t count them. Look. Now we not only have to conduct random inspections, but also send people to the factory to follow the orders throughout the process.”
Nowadays, consumers have higher and higher requirements for the design of clothing, especially Hanfu. In order to meet the new needs of consumers, many businesses in Cao County are willing to spend a lot of money to hire designers. “The designers our company hired from Guangdong earn an average annual salary of 20,000 yuan a month.” Chen Jichao said.
The quality and brand issues of Caoxian’s clothing industry have always been shortcomings in development. In recent years, Caoxian County has made a lot of efforts to make up for the shortcomings. This year, Caoxian County signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Shandong Provincial Fashion Design Association, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University School of Fashion Design, and Shandong Academy of Arts and Crafts, which will further promote the branding, high-end, and internationalization of Caoxian County’s apparel industry.
Don’t leave any company behind
A misunderstanding gives a glimpse into the business environment
The surge in orders has once again witnessed the unstoppable development momentum of Caoxian e-commerce. Behind the development of the industry, it is inseparable from the government’s high attention and high service awareness.
“Did any printing factory close down?” Last month, Zhang Longfei, director of the Cao County E-commerce Office, encountered a transport truck when passing through Sun’s hometown town. The truck was carrying a printing machine used to make clothing fabrics. machine. In front of the transport truck, there was also a car with a foreign license plate leading the way. Because this was the third time he had encountered a similar situation recently, Zhang Longfei almost thought “something bad was going on.”
“What difficulties did they encounter? Did the government’s services not do enough?” Zhang Longfei quickly waved his hand to stop the guide truck. After some research, I learned that the boss is from Sun’s hometown and specializes in the production and processing of Hanfu and performance costumes. Some large merchants in Daji Town upgraded their machines iteratively, and the bosses took advantage of the opportunity to snap up purchases.
Although this was a misunderstanding, Zhang Longfei did not “give up” just yet. He quickly called the director of Sun’s hometown e-commerce office, verified the boss’s identity and asked the director of the town’s e-commerce office to continue to pay attention to whether the company still lacked machines and what kind of services it needed from the government. However, Zhang Longfei did not expect that the director of the town’s e-commerce office would go over to learn about the situation in the afternoon just after he made the call. “If any e-commerce-related company quits, it will not make any waves among the tens of millions of e-commerce companies in Caoxian County, but it will reflect the loss of industry and inadequate government services.” Zhang Longfei said, as a government, we No company can be left behind.
With the protection of this business environment, the entire industry chain of Caoxian e-commerce is bursting with vitality. Data shows that this year, there are more than 50 newly opened fabric printing stores in Caoxian County. There were 24 new garment processing companies, 350 new cutting and sewing equipment, 34 new high-end printing machines, 9 new embroidery companies, and 82 new embroidery machines. From January to April, online retail sales in Caoxian County reached 7.929 billion yuan, of which online retail sales of clothing were nearly 4 billion yuan.
Offline experience stores are blooming everywhere
Seize the traffic and drive onto a new track
In 2021, Caoxian County will be out of the circle as the “center of the universe”, along with industries such as performance costumes and Hanfu. Being swept away by traffic, how to turn traffic into “remaining volume” has always been a question that local people are thinking about. Now two years have passed, this wave of traffic has invisibly promoted the faster development of the industry, and even spawned more and more new business formats.
When you walk on the streets of Daji Town, you will find that offline experience stores for Hanfu and performance costumes have sprouted everywhere, and there is an endless stream of customers coming to try on the costumes. Before 2021, there were very few such offline experience stores in the county.
Li Tao, Secretary of the Party Committee of Daji Town, said that this year, the number of Hanfu offline experience stores in Daji Town has increased sharply from the original 10 to more than 70. This year, especially Hanfu, is not only popular online, but also offline. Buyers from all over the country go to large market towns to purchase Hanfu, and some stores have sales of more than 100,000 yuan in a single day.
In Zhang Longfei’s view, this phenomenon is a manifestation of Caoxian County’s compliance with consumers’ desire to explore and experience Internet celebrity cities. “After Caoxian County became an Internet celebrity city, we have also been encouraging e-commerce manufacturers, especially Hanfu Manufacturing companies must meet the diversified needs of consumers for offline experience and use traffic to convert traffic into ‘retained volume’.”
Using Internet traffic to expand specialty industries, Caoxian County has already been running on a new track. In recent years, Caoxian County has gradually transformed from traditional e-commerce to live broadcast e-commerce. Zhang Longfei said that in the next step, Caoxian County will unswervingly promote the expansion and quality improvement of the e-commerce industry and strive to polish the brand of Internet celebrity cities. In particular, we should work hard on “atmosphere” and use the advantages of live broadcast empowerment to cultivate more Internet celebrity anchors and anchors with goods around Caoxian County’s characteristic industries to promote the cross-industry, cross-field, and fission-type development of rural e-commerce.
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