Wenzhou Shoe Factory Saved Itself Under The Epidemic: All The Workers In The Factory Were Sold.

Wenzhou, known as the "China Shoes Capital", is facing a huge test of thousands of leather shoes enterprises: the cancellation of foreign trade orders and the sharp decrease in business volume; the goods delivered are closed to customers due to the closure of customers' stores, and the upstream suppliers are not allowed to pay arrears and the capital chain can not keep up with the order. For many bosses of small and medium-sized shoe factories in Wenzhou, the spring of 2020 is even colder than winter.

However, in the face of further difficulties, they still firmly believe that "there must be a way to the front of the mountain." In the words of a shoe business owner, "no one is vegetarian" who can start a business in Wenzhou. They will think of various ways to overcome the difficulties at the moment. "Shoes can't sell, they will summon all the staff to sell shoes together."

Reporters interviewed in Wenzhou about shoe manufacturers found that the new crowns affected by the epidemic, they encountered different difficulties, they solve different ways, but they make the enterprise to live the courage and determination is the same.

Selling shoes with full staff

Luo Jianwen, a Jinhua native in Zhejiang, came to Wenzhou to set up shoe factories in 2016. Before that, he had done Market Research for nearly half a year, and thought that shoes still had much market space.

Before opening the shoe factory, Luo Jianwen spent more than 10 years in auto parts, hotel supplies, building materials and other industries. In his words, every line was not deep enough to earn a lot of money, but it was relatively smooth.

After a market survey, Luo Jianwen decided to come to Wenzhou to open a shoe factory. He pulled up a high school classmate, raised nearly five million yuan, rented a more than 1000 square meter workshop, bought machinery and equipment, recruits, and then began to produce.

"Compared to the current difficulties, the difficulty of opening business is not difficult at all." Sitting on the first floor of the shoe factory facade, Luo Jianwen told reporters on the side of the tea, although there will be difficulties in the first three years of the plant, such as developing new customers, the upstream purchase of raw materials can not be owed, and the capital turnover pressure is great, but the factory can make profits every year. Luo Jianwen said that these difficulties ahead are short-lived, such as the development of customers, salesmen and family run, there is always "East is not bright west light" when the word of mouth is good, some customers will take the initiative to find it. As for the supply of raw materials and trust, there can be a certain clearing cycle for goods now.

But the epidemic is coming.

"The Internet says that foreign trade is affected by the epidemic, and we have no difficulty in doing domestic sales." Luo Jianwen said that their factory had a holiday in mid January this year, until the middle of March, it was completely resumed. In the first quarter, the factory did not produce for two months.

What worries Luo Jianwen most is that a customer in Changde, Hunan, has been affected by the epidemic. Three stores have been forced to shut down because they can not keep up with the capital chain. In 2019, the payment was not settled. Finally, the customer returned the 2020 spring and summer shoes that had not yet been sold, and returned more than 3000 pairs altogether.

Selling shoes and selling clothes usually sell the next season's style. Luo Jianwen said the factory had already started producing autumn shoes, and the returned shoes would not be available to other customers.

In order to reduce the losses, Luo Jianwen decided to take out the shoes and sell them to the internal staff at 20 percent off of the cost. He called on all the staff members of the factory to ask the relatives and friends around him if there was any demand. If there was demand, he could buy it at the worker's price.

"I didn't expect the results to be good. There are indeed some employees' relatives who need it, and they know the cost price of the shoes, so they have to buy it." Luo Jianwen said that in less than half a month, the 3000 pairs of shoes were internally digested.

This also gave Luo Jianwen a new idea: let employees become salesmen. The factory provides employees with 10 percent off of the ex factory price. Employees can sell shoes in their own social circles, and the profits are owned by employees.

"Of course, we do not set a rigid task for our employees, and how much we can sell is entirely decided by the employees themselves." Luo Jianwen said.

Looking for opportunities in danger: helping shoe companies sell shoes online

The outbreak of the new crown pneumonia has brought a heavy blow to many enterprises of "China Shoes Capital". "China Shoes Capital" is a well-known footwear production base in Wenzhou. At present, there are more than 1500 footwear industrial chain enterprises in the base. In 2019, the total output value of the shoes is over 10 billion yuan, of which women's shoes are world-famous, and their output accounts for about 1/4 of the world. However, under the impact of the epidemic, many shoe enterprises' foreign trade orders have been cancelled by 8 customers, and domestic orders have also been cancelled.

Li Ping is the chairman of a footwear design company in Wenzhou. She had been engaged in footwear foreign trade business in Guangzhou for more than 10 years, mainly according to the needs of customers, helping to design the style of shoes and giving orders to domestic foreign trade enterprises.

Three years ago, Li Ping returned to Wenzhou. In addition to leaving a group of teams in Guangzhou and Dongguan, she took the team from Wenzhou to design a platform for all shoe enterprises to carry out marketing -- "shoes are strictly selected on cloud space". Originally planned, this platform will only be formally launched in June 2020.

However, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the shoe enterprises in Wenzhou encountered great difficulties, and many enterprises increased their inventories, which made Li Ping speed up. In March 21st, the "shoes are strictly selected on cloud space" small procedures into trial operation.

"Because of the rush to get started, the number of visits on the line is huge, and the system has crashed three times, and some people have reported that our pages are not good looking." Li Ping told reporters that during the Spring Festival epidemic, her technical team was not idle, and had been working overtime to improve the system. Since the trial run by WeChat applet in March 21st, it was formally launched in March 31st. In a short span of ten days, "shoes are strictly selected on cloud space" has attracted more than 200 enterprises to enter the name, and turnover reached more than 100 thousand.

It can be said that "shoes are strictly selected on cloud space" as a new digital platform, is the new attempt to build a "Internet + industrial platform" in China's shoe capital and enterprises in the area since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

Li Ping said, there are some shoe enterprises have their own business channel, such as red dragonfly, there are flagship stores on Tmall, but the relative products are relatively single, "our platform is equivalent to a business super, which can provide all kinds of shoes, users can choose a lot."

"We will develop the APP program immediately. During the operation, we will sort out all the supporting work of the entire product, logistics, warehousing, and so on, and put all the products of many shoe companies into the platform." Li Ping said.