Yiwu Orders In Christmas Season "Before The Epidemic Situation Returns"

"In the first year of the outbreak of the epidemic, our orders were cut in half. Last year, it was back to about 70%. This year, it has returned to the pre epidemic situation."

As the head of Yiwu Christmas Industry Association, Jiang Jiangping, who has been selling Christmas costumes in Yiwu International Trade City since 2003, simply summarizes the ups and downs of the past three years. This is a case in point. It is also the common fate of some 200 businesses in Yiwu International Trade City who are doing Christmas business like him. Most of them have resisted the pressure of the global economic downturn and recovered to the state before the epidemic.

As a "World Christmas supplies base", Yiwu exports more than 20000 Christmas products to more than 100 countries and regions every year. Data show that in the first seven months of this year, Yiwu's export of Christmas products reached 1.75 billion yuan, up 88.5% year on year; Among them, the export volume in July was 850 million yuan, up 85.6% year-on-year and 75.8% month on month.

Yiwu, which is performing the miracle of "making something out of nothing", what has stabilized the Christmas order this time?

　　 Overseas demand recovery

As the world's main distribution center of Christmas products, Yiwu contributes two-thirds of the world's Christmas supplies. Every year, Yiwu exports more than 20000 Christmas products to more than 100 countries and regions.

Jiang Jiangping, whose main export destination is the European market, said that orders from larger overseas customers almost doubled this year, laying the foundation for Christmas orders to return to pre epidemic conditions.

"This year's overall orders have increased by more than 30% compared with last year, and the orders of old customers have basically doubled or two times this year." Xu Jun, Yiwu Business Owner and person in charge of Taizhou Xiangxiang Christmas lighting company, believes that the overseas consumer market has been recovering, which makes the purchase demand of Christmas products significantly increased this year.

Compared with the previous two years, the market is relatively stable, and this year's market has an obvious upward trend. In addition to the continued orders of regular customers and the diversion of cross-border e-commerce platforms, Xu Jun said that the Yiwu government has organized business charter flights this year to bring overseas merchants back to Yiwu market for purchasing, which has also brought them new orders.

Yiwu business owner, who produces and sells Christmas trees, said that the orders of this year are better than last year, and the orders of merchants are earlier and more active than those of the previous year.

As lighting and other products are mainly exported to South America and the Middle East, Xu said frankly that their Christmas orders only recovered to about 70% of the pre epidemic situation. In order to tap more market demand, he has begun to prepare Festival lighting for the Middle East people in Ramadan, and tries to seize the opportunity of outdoor products to customize lighting for outdoor scenes such as tents.

"If the global epidemic is over, the Christmas industry should be better and better," Jiang said.

　　 Early delivery, supply chain resilience

In Yiwu, the export season of Christmas products is from July to September every year. The epidemic in early August hindered the local supply chain in Yiwu, and production and logistics had to slow down or even stop. Christmas orders, which were at the peak of delivery in previous years, were "lucky to have survived".

Jiang Jiangping said: "it turns out that customers place orders in June every year. Last year, sea transportation has grown like that. This year, they come to place orders from March to April."

Xu Jun, a Yiwu Business Owner and head of Taizhou Xiangxiang Christmas lighting company, also said that last year's sea freight charges rose dramatically, and the container situation was unstable, which affected the delivery efficiency to a certain extent, and also gave overseas merchants the motivation to place orders and deliver goods in advance this year. Considering the rebound of overseas market Carnival demand this year, they placed orders and delivered goods one or two months ahead of the previous year, and increased the order volume.

This means that a large number of goods have been sent overseas before the silent control of Yiwu in August this year.

However, due to the long sea transportation cycle, orders from Europe and the United States were delivered earlier, while orders from Japan and South Korea, which were closer to each other, were still in production and delivery, and some orders were inevitably affected by the epidemic.

Xu Jun said that in order to speed up the shipment, after the unsealing, they "had to work two days a day. They were very busy in September, and they were busy until the middle of September, and finally became relatively normal.". Since the factory is not in Yiwu, production has not been directly affected.

As a large-scale local owner of Christmas ornaments production and sales, Li Jun successfully applied for the pass during the silent period. While closed-loop production, the goods can also be normally loaded and transported out, and the overall situation is smooth, which significantly reduces the risk of delayed delivery.

In the period of high uncertainty, Yiwu people's hardworking and resilient supply chain integration ability show advantages. After unsealing, a Christmas products factory dispatched more than 50 people in two shifts to ship goods 24 hours a day, and delivered dozens of containers to France, Germany, Italy, Australia and other places as scheduled. At the same time, the supply chain and warehouses behind many business households are distributed all over the country, so we can adjust them in time according to the local reality to reduce the degree of obstruction as much as possible.

Cai Qinliang, Secretary General of Yiwu Christmas products industry association, proposed that Yiwu, as a global Christmas products base, relies not only on Yiwu, but also on the whole of China. A seemingly simple Christmas product is likely to be completed in a nationwide division of labor and cooperation.

　　 Insist on low price and high quality

The cross-border index of Alibaba's September purchasing Festival shows that "two festivals and one competition" is the strongest consumer force in the second half of the year. Affected by the economic downturn, global double festival (Christmas, black five) consumption tends to "buy low price and high quality", and buyers pay more attention to IP creativity and flexible customization.

"Low price and high quality" is also the characteristics and opportunity of Yiwu Christmas products.

For a long time, the description of "high quality and low price" made in China mainly by OEM seems to be reflected in the latter. However, nowadays, the made in China with Yiwu Christmas products as an example is no longer only low price, but also contains the meaning of high cost performance and high quality.

"We control the quality of our products very strictly." Jiang Jiangping, for example, said that each of their Christmas hats with lights will be inspected from the size to the details of whether the lights are on or not, so as to ensure the quality of each product. 70% of the customers never need to inspect the goods because of the long-term accumulated business credit and customer trust.

As one of the earliest operators of Christmas products in Yiwu market, Jiang Jiangping said that many foreign workers in his own factory had returned to their hometown to work on their own, but most of them could not survive. First, the customers did not last. Second, they attracted foreign customers with lower prices. But they were basically "one-time business", because the way to achieve low prices was to cut corners.

"We never lower the standard in our own goods." Jiang Jiangping said that if we make more profits by making materials "thinner or lighter", laymen may not see any difference, but he will not do so, because it will destroy reputation and trust.

Asked if part of the order was transferred to Southeast Asia or India, Jiang Jiangping said bluntly: "they can do it there, but a lot of materials still need to be imported from China, and the customers are more local people. After all, the varieties can't be as many and complete as Yiwu."

Jiang Jiangping believes that the labor cost and raw material cost of Yiwu have been rising in recent years, but only with high efficiency can the comprehensive cost be reduced. The long-term industrial advantages make Yiwu have the efficiency that Southeast Asia can not catch up with, and make large-scale transfer "less realistic".

In addition to a sound industrial base, seasonal products such as Christmas orders "are far from enough to rely on artificial advantages. They also need rich varieties, styles and freshness to attract customers.". In the latter, Yiwu businessmen, who are extremely sensitive to the market, have advantages.

"We have a special design team, which will launch dozens of new products every year, so we can't eliminate the sales volume and make dynamic adjustments," Jiang said.

In this year's Yiwu market, there are not only 5 yuan 100 top Christmas hats, a few cents a Christmas ball, but also hundreds of yuan, thousands of yuan of electric Santa Claus.

Cai Qinliang also believes that from raw materials to production, large-scale division of labor and cooperation among different enterprises, and then gathering global buyers, Yiwu, as a global Christmas supply base, is not formed in a day or two, and it is unlikely to be surpassed by others in the short term. It is difficult to imagine that India or any other country can use the resources of one country to form such a huge and complex system of production division of labor nationwide, based on the standard of production efficiency.

Compared with industrial transfer, closer regional cooperation and trade exchanges have been an obvious trend since this year. With the continuous release of the "belt and road" and RCEP policy dividend, Yiwu's trade with countries and regions along the belt and road and RCEP member countries has become frequent, and has become a new growth pole of foreign trade. From January to July, Yiwu's imports and exports to countries and regions along the belt and road totaled 100.62 billion yuan, an increase of 19.1%. Imports and exports to other RCEP member countries reached 44.53 billion yuan, up 30.7% year on year. Over the same period, Yiwu customs supervised the total value of import and export goods of the "Yi Xin EU" China Europe train, of which the total value of imported goods was 5.37 billion yuan, an increase of 52.8%.

Faced with the downward pressure of the global economy, more and more people will become more cautious in investing and developing new products. However, following the changes of overseas market demand, speeding up the pace of product updating and adjusting the direction of design and sales in a timely manner is what Yiwu businessmen, who are good at flexibility and have the ability of flexible customization, have long adhered to it.

Faced with the pressure of rising raw materials and labor costs, Xu Jun's profit margin has declined this year, and they are still faced with common problems such as difficult recruitment. However, they have basically walked out of the haze of the epidemic and resumed their normal global business, which has ushered in a window period of better survival and transformation.

Wang Shouwen, Deputy Minister of international trade negotiations of the Ministry of Commerce, said at a regular policy briefing of the State Council on September 27 that the development environment of foreign trade is becoming more and more complex, and the growth rate of world economy and Global trade has slowed down. Of course, China's foreign trade is also facing some uncertainties, and the uncertainty is increasing. Although we are facing the background of slowing down or even weakening foreign demand, we are confident that the foreign trade in the second half of the year can achieve positive growth.

Zhejiang can be said to be one of the top students in China's foreign trade this year, while Yiwu is one of the top students in Zhejiang. According to the data of Yiwu customs, from January to July this year, the total import and export value of Yiwu reached 268.17 billion yuan, an increase of 33.8% over the same period last year. Among them, exports increased by 29.1% year-on-year, while imports increased by 115.4%, 14.3%, 6.5% and 104 percentage points higher than those of Zhejiang Province. As one of the top students, as well as the general existence of foreign trade "barometer", Yiwu Christmas season orders "before the outbreak" and the following trend are obviously concerned.

(source: first finance and Economics)