From March 6th to 8th, the 2024 China International Textile Fabric and Accessories (Spring/Summer) Expo, along with the China International Clothing and Apparel Expo (CHIC Spring) and the China International Home Textile and Accessories (Spring/Summer) Expo, were held in Shanghai. This was one of the largest clothing and fabric exhibitions in China, and many exhibitors saw it as a major event to start the year. A total of 113 enterprises from Yuecheng District gathered together to participate in this joint exhibition, with an exhibition area of 1958 square meters.
During the three-day exhibition period of arranging samples, negotiating orders, and receiving customers, there was a surge of people in the venue. Small booths conceal the hustle and bustle of foreign traders and convey the warmth and coldness of the market in the new year.
In the past year, the global trade market has faced tremendous changes, with weak external demand and a decrease in orders. "Difficulty" is a high-frequency term that most foreign traders talk about. But there are also some enterprises that, relying on their years of keen sense, timely adjust their strategies, actively develop new quality productivity, and find new ways out in the flood of the market.
In recent days, reporters have visited several high-quality foreign trade enterprises in the fields of clothing, fabrics, and home textiles, exploring new foreign trade strategies in the new international market from their mouths. Their story was a microcosm of the trend of going global in 2023, and can also provide some valuable experience for all 2024 foreign traders going global.
In the past two years, traditional foreign traders in Shaoxing have had a clear feeling that orders from Europe and America have decreased. During the interview, many companies explained the reasons: influenced by national policies, many European and American companies began to cooperate with factories in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam to build new supply chains outside of China.
The increasingly intense "No China" model has created a strong sense of crisis for foreign trade enterprises mainly focusing on European and American orders. "Previously, when going to supermarkets in European and American countries, 90% of the items were made in China, but now it has been reduced to 20%. In recent years, the number of European and American customers at exhibitions has also significantly decreased." During the exchange, Chen Yajian, the general manager of Shaoxing Yinglun Home Textile Co., Ltd., exclaimed more than once that the era of "sitting and receiving orders" has passed. Only by going out can we win new markets and gain the initiative in transactions.
Diversified participation is Chen Yajian's main way of responding to market changes. "In addition to this Shanghai exhibition, there are five or six foreign exhibitions to attend, covering Australia, Mexico, Türkiye and other countries." He said that it is often easier to know high-quality customers through participation, so as to open new markets for enterprises.
In fact, in order to better go global, more companies have already laid out in advance.
In 2015, Shaoxing Newidea Garment Co., Ltd. began to enter the foreign sales market by recruiting local sales personnel to expand the influence of its products in the local market. At present, the sales team of "New Eddie" has spread to countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Canada, Chile, and Spain. Last year, the company's annual sales exceeded 70 million US dollars, an increase of nearly 30%. "In the future, we also plan to cooperate with Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia to help our factories go global," said Tracy, Assistant General Manager of Shaoxing Newidea Garment Co., Ltd. Prior to this year, the company was already attempting to transfer European orders to Vietnamese factories for production, with a total quantity of 20000 to 30000 pieces.
This spring is particularly "new" for Zhejiang enterprises. At the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the hottest topic is undoubtedly the new quality of productivity. New quality productivity refers to high-quality productivity with high technological content and high added value. During the exhibition, the reporter felt the burst of new quality productivity of foreign trade enterprises from the numerous exhibitors who were known as the " The duck knows first when the river becomes warm in spring".
Upon arriving at the 42 square meter exhibition area of Shaoxing Newidea Garment Co., Ltd., the reporter saw over 130 samples of clothing neatly arranged. "Every item here is a new design from this year," said Tracy, the assistant general manager, before the reporter could even speak. "We have trained our sales team and release over 100 new designs of clothing every quarter." Since exploring the domestic market in 2018, the company has rapidly transitioned from a large-scale, long-term order based model to creating a brand new production line with higher quality and faster order returns. "At the beginning of the year, we continuously received new orders and the factory operates day and night. This year, we plan to expand our domestic production lines to 2," Tracy said confidently.
Clothing companies were changing, and downstream fabric companies were also undergoing transformation.
In recent years, Zhejiang Shaoxing Yongda Needle Spinning Technology Co., Ltd. has focused on two things: actively reducing orders from low-quality customers and fully exploring high-quality customers; Build a planning department to adapt to the fast-paced market. Previously, most of Yongda's business was concentrated in the wholesale market in Los Angeles. Although the annual marketing revenue was nearly 80 million yuan, the slow payment speed of customers year by year still made Zhang Jian, the head of the company's foreign trade, feel the crisis. Nowadays, with the transformation of sales strategies, enterprises are advancing from the hard power of price to the hard power of quality.
"The hard power of quality not only refers to product quality, but also tests whether a company has strong quick response capabilities." Zhang Jian said that nowadays, with market upgrading, many American customers prefer to place "fast orders", which happens to be the advantage of Chinese enterprises. He made an analogy about this: it takes nearly four weeks for a sample garment to be shipped from Bangladesh to the United States by sea, but the same amount of time, if placed in Yongda, is enough to send the finished garment to the customer's hands. "So, Chinese companies need to recognize their advantages and increase their factories' fast response capabilities. As long as the demand for fast response is there, there is still the possibility of further expansion in the European and American markets."
The market was changing, the track was changing, and customer demand was changing. Was there anything that remains unchanged for foreign trade enterprises? Faced with this question, many companies answered that the service remained unchanged.
"Every year before the end of the year, our sales representatives have to visit old customers abroad," said Tracy, the assistant general manager of Newidea. Since its establishment, the company has always ensured timely delivery and has a high reputation among customers.
Chen Yajian, the person in charge of Yinglun Home Textile, gave a real-life example: Recently, a Shenzhen customer of Shaoxing Yinglun Home Textile Co., Ltd. proposed that a batch of orders from the company had an odor. Upon learning about this matter, Chen Yajian decided to air dry the products in the factory without hesitation to remove any odor. There are over 2000 products in total, with each product being air dried for 2 days and 100 pieces per day, which lasted for more than half a month. "Every day, I have the staff take videos of the progress of the drying process to show our sincerity to the client," Chen Yajian said. Currently, the company has started negotiating new cooperation with the client.
The same high-quality service is equally useful in the e-commerce field. Last year, Shaoxing Yinglun Home Textile Co., Ltd. received a return and exchange application in an Amazon store because the purchased pet mat was bitten open by a pet dog at home, with a note indicating that the price difference can be compensated. At this point, it has been more than 20 days since the seller made the purchase, and the company does not need to take responsibility. However, Chen Yajian not only agreed to the exchange request, but also waived the price difference fee proposed by the seller. Now, the buyer has become a loyal fan of the store, creating long-term profits for the enterprise.
"It is through the accumulation of high-quality services time and time again that we have established a good reputation in the industry." In Chen Yajian's view, the principle of doing business was not complicated. "As long as we treat our customers as friends with care, they will naturally give corresponding feedback." Of course, there was also an unchanging law: "To forge iron, you still need to be hard yourself.". Enterprises must find their positioning accurately, keenly perceive market trends, accelerate innovation, take new brands, materials, technologies, and business models as entry points, strive to shorten production and supply cycles, enhance core competitiveness, in order to usher in a "spring" in the complex and ever-changing international environment.
This law has been validated in the development of foreign trade in Yuecheng. In 2023, the export of goods from Yuecheng reached 86.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.3%, ranking first in the city for eight consecutive months. It is believed that in the new year, new and old foreign trade entrepreneurs with "unique skills" will, with the support and cultivation of the local government, break a broader Xintiandi in the global market.