"Men's Clothing Town" Of Rongcheng's Two Generation: Want To Do Business, But Also Have Trouble.

More than 30 years ago, Xu Feng's father set up this garment factory. In their concept, every household in Rongcheng makes clothes, there are many large factories, and family style small workshops are dotted with stars.

Rongcheng is "the hometown of men's clothing". In 2006, the county was assessed by the China Textile Industry Association and the China clothing association as a pilot of China's men's wear city and the national textile industrial cluster. In fact, before the announcement of the Xiong an new area, even the businessmen in the clothing field knew little about this "northern clothing city" with nearly 40 years of clothing industry history.

According to statistics, as of the end of 2016, there were more than 2000 garment processing enterprises in Rongcheng, more than 920 garment processing enterprises on the upper scale, and 40 more than 1000 workers, and the output value was 25 billion 600 million yuan. The products covered 6 large series of suits, shirts, leisure, cotton wear, underwear, trousers and so on, with an annual output of 450 million pieces (sets) of all kinds of garments.

The reason why this clothing town is not known to foreigners is probably that Rongcheng clothing has always been export oriented and has been doing OEM for a long time. Compared with the clothing industry in Fujian, Jinjiang, Zhejiang and Hangzhou, although the overall size of Rongcheng clothing is large, there are few well-known leading enterprises. There are only two new three board listed company. This is perhaps one of the transformation difficulties it faces.

Relying on the advantages of the supply chain, the electricity supplier is seen as a big way out for the factory transformation. In wholesale business, only its own factory has sold half of its sales through Alibaba's 1688 platform. At the beginning of this year, she also moved the electricity supplier office which has been operating for nearly 6 years from the village to Baoding, hoping to attract more business talents.

The news of Xiong an new area allows them to see more hope for transformation and upgrading. "Under the good policy, we hope to seize the opportunity to retain and attract talented people and get better development."

The following is the wife Li Li dictated that "the whole county is making clothes, no one even knows?"

I grew up in a clothing factory, and my classmates around me are almost the same generation as I am the two generation. When I graduated from university in 2001, I went home to inherit the family business, and initially worked hard in the production line, in charge of the supply chain, which made me know every link of clothing production. In my impression, every household in Rongcheng is making clothes. Therefore, when the original industrial belt was settled in the Alibaba, I found out that there was no Rongcheng. I was shocked. No one in the county actually knew how to make clothes.

In response to the call for reform and opening up, our parents began to set up garment factories more than 30 years ago, becoming the first batch of overseas export enterprises, mainly exported to the United States, Japan and South Korea.

I don't know many foreign brands of English names. I can say that there are fast fashion brands such as H&M and ZARA, and domestic brands such as JEANSWEST, woodpecker and so on.

Business has expanded, and some old factories can not do business. They take over small factories. They use fewer people and have little management cost. The biggest advantage is flexibility and low price, and naturally they have their own way of survival.

All men's clothing styles that can be found on the market can be produced in Rongcheng, and they are divided into villages and townships. For example, the county town is mainly western suit, western trousers jacket, sportswear mountaineering suit, our factory located in Ping Wang Township is mainly shirt. (Note: the jurisdiction of Rongcheng county is 5 towns, 3 townships, namely, Rong town, Xiao Li Town, South Zhang Zhen, Dahe Town, airmat Town, eight Yuxiang, Jia Guangxiang, Ping Wang Township.

At its height, our factory workers once reached hundreds of people, less than one hundred now. After 2014, I clearly felt that export orders were reduced and production capacity was greatly reduced. In the past, 300 thousand orders were normal and 100 thousand orders were placed. The reduction of orders also brought a series of vicious chain reactions.

In the past, most of the workers were foreign workers, and when they moved to more profitable southern areas, factories had to employ higher cost local laborers. From our factory, the salary of the front-line staff is not less than 3000 yuan per month, and the management staff is 4000-6000 yuan. Besides, the local recruitment and retention are more difficult, sometimes even in short supply.

The increase in cost has made the profits that are not so high become thinner. The gross profit of garments will be even less than 1 yuan per piece, so we need more sales to drive the scale. Under such circumstances, we have no choice but to gradually shift factories to remote mountainous areas where labor costs are lower.

"Xiong an new district is new, the potential of electricity supplier is very large."

Baigou Town, which belongs to Baoding City, is an industrial gathering place for luggage and plush toys, because the cost of goods is low, thus forming an electric business mode of factory getting goods online selling. Baigou's electric business street attracts many businessmen from all over the country to do business.

Rongcheng county is only a few tens of minutes away from Baigou, but the electricity supplier atmosphere is totally different. I've heard of electricity providers there, but I've never been there before. I am close to 40 years old, and many of my successors in this age group, including myself, are more traditional and have a very slow contact with new things. But fortunately, everyone has a sense of transformation.

When the older generation of factories began to take over the two generation, they were more willing to try new things, such as investing more energy in the field of electricity supplier. As more and more young people join in, the electronic business team is gradually expanding, driving the transformation of traditional supply chain. This is a positive signal for Rongcheng as a whole.

The reason why Xiong an new district is new is that it is like a blank sheet of paper. Everything can be painted up. For our clothing industry, factories have always been strong in exports, all of which are new. When exports shrink and look at the domestic market, it is found that domestic sales are also a big market. This is our chance.

In my view, the high quality supply chain based on industrial clusters is the biggest advantage for us to do well in the electricity supplier. It is not modest to say that at least in men's quality, Rongcheng is not inferior or even better than the south.

The northerners do business more practically, and before we make foreign orders, we are very strict with materials for employment. As far as I know, almost all the men's clothing accessories from Shaoxing Keqiao area, so we need to provide better quality under the premise that fabric purchase channels are very similar.

For example, under the same fabric, we will use the whole process of technology, and all the production with professional machines. This machine requires a technical training in advance for workers, unlike some workers in the south. But in this way, slow technology has increased the cost of labor. So in terms of price, the price of the South has hit us a lot. A similar shirt, if we only get 18 yuan from Guangzhou, we can produce a minimum price of 22 yuan.

"We want to do well in e-commerce. The biggest worry is lack of talents."

As a matter of fact, when parents are accustomed to mass production orders, their parents initially did not see the small quantity of electricity suppliers, let alone support. I have encountered some obstacles, but I have been insisting on it.

The factory has gone through two stages of electricity supplier development. Around 2003, we entered the supply chain as the 1688 platform to supply men's clothing sellers all over the country, including a lot of e-commerce providers. In Beijing, many of the better seller shirts sell hundreds of orders a day, but they actually get goods from us.

During the period, many Zhejiang electricity supplier operation companies found us, wanted to do our 1688 platform generation operation, but basically only made the details page, showing the clothes, but did not highlight the characteristics. After several tries, we decided to run our own business. Today, wholesale orders through the platform already account for half of our total capacity. This is a fairly large proportion.

In 2011, my husband took the lead in running a Taobao store called "Sheng Jun men's clothing". But at the same time doing wholesale business, in order not to directly compete with customers, we hardly ever sell new products, just as a channel to clean up inventory.

After touching the electricity supplier, the garment factories which had hardly ever communicated with each other have started to walk frequently. Each factory has good products. Taobao stores need more diversified products. For example, we make shirts, but we also need to make western style clothes manufacturers to provide products, so we need to complement each other.

But the shop is harder than before, and the competition for men's clothing market is very competitive. Compared with women's clothing, men's clothing styles are not very different. How to stand out is the biggest problem. We are still using the national shirt production standard released in 80s, and the size is so large that we can have a short sleeved shirt with more long sleeves than the south.

We are not as good as the south in terms of style innovation. The trend has long overturned the concept of shirts for consumers, while the South has been researching styles and bringing forth new ideas. On the other hand, women's clothing also has an impact on men's clothing. More flax and casual styles are becoming popular. We also need to respond.

Many factories try to transform brands, but there are not many in Tmall's flagship stores, but there are not many successful ones. First, the cost of operation is very large. In addition, many electricity supplier industrial chains, including e-commerce models, photography companies, and so on in southern cities such as Hangzhou, are too far away from us.

Last year, I threw myself out of the production line and devoted myself to the business of electronic commerce. In order to recruit more business talents, I even moved the electricity supplier office to Baoding earlier this year. Moving from the village to the city is very difficult, but it has to be done. At present, my biggest worry is the lack of e-commerce talents. I am going to try cross border electricity providers through fast selling and other platforms, and do not want to be abandoned too far by the trend of electricity suppliers. The biggest problem is wanting to do and not doing.

More than a year ago, we had completed the confirmation of land ownership and stopped building civil engineering six months ago, but at that time we did not know what would happen next. According to the announcement of Xiong an New District, we know that, due to the handover of three counties in Anxin, Rongcheng and Xiongxian, next to Baiyangdian, Ping Wang Township will be the first batch of Xiong new district development.

This is a good thing for us. Under the good policy, we hope to seize the opportunity to retain and attract talented people and get better development.