Moving Forward Under Pressure, The Textile And Clothing Industry Skillfully Makes "Addition And Subtraction"

What will the traditional textile and clothing industry experience in 2023? In the words of industry insiders, the market is large enough and the pain points are painful enough.

The textile and clothing industry is one of Changshu's pillar industries, with a scale of more than 100 billion yuan. In 2023, the online and offline market transaction volume of Changshu Mocheng Street (Clothing City) will be 215.5 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 11.22%. According to the statistics of Changshu Customs, in 2023, the export of clothing and clothing accessories (clothing products) in Changshu will reach 6.81 billion yuan, up 6.5% year on year.

Where does growth come from? How to get to the pain point? Recently, the reporter came to Changshu to visit several textile and clothing enterprises, large and small.

　　 "Reverse thinking" in adversity

In the dialogue with Hu Lingfeng, the general manager of Jiangsu Xinkaisheng Textile Technology Co., Ltd., the reporter felt the "reverse thinking" of the enterprise everywhere.

"Last year, our sales did decline by nearly 30%, but in 2022, our sales hit a record high because customers in Europe, America and Japan bought too much. Last year, customers were basically de stocking," said Hu Lingfeng.

"Don't panic in the face of a downturn? To tell the truth, it's not very scary." Hu Lingfeng turned his head, "because we had a pre judgment according to the customer's order at the beginning of last year, we were mentally prepared, and the customer is still there. So last year, instead of doing 'subtraction', we have been trying to do 'addition'."

How to add? By the end of this year, New Capvision's factory in Vietnam will be completed and put into operation, and the production scale will be about one-third of the current domestic factory capacity. "After opening overseas factories, the domestic capacity has not decreased, but the overall capacity has increased." When asked whether there is a risk of insufficient orders, Hu Lingfeng said, "On the one hand, we have cooperated with three major customers such as Uniqlo for more than 10 years, and our overseas layout actually exists as a link in their supply chain, which is a deep binding. On the other hand, overseas distribution may establish new cooperation with new customers. Therefore, in adversity, we should have 'reverse thinking' and be good at 'addition'. "

New Capvision is confident in attracting new customers. "In Southeast Asia, the production scale of cotton fabrics is relatively large, but the chemical fiber fabrics have not yet formed a scale, and we are just specialized in developing and producing chemical fiber fabrics." Hu Lingfeng said that the chemical fiber today is not the same as 20 years ago, with new functions such as fast drying, anti ultraviolet, antibacterial, cool feeling, and warmth preservation.

To "add" means to constantly meet new customer needs. "For example, the traditional down jacket fabric is woven fabric. The clothing brand of Columbia hopes that we can develop knitted down jacket fabric, which also requires wind and water resistance. Last year, we developed this product, and this year we have an order. If the latter product is recognized by the market, the order will be larger." Hu Lingfeng said, "At present, we are developing nylon products, which are commonly used in golf, skiing and other sports scenes. At present, there are relatively few such fabrics in China. We want to develop a more high-end market, and it is estimated that they will be put into production in May and June this year."

"Last year, we were still trying to overcome the pain points of traditional chemical fiber." Hu Lingfeng took out a very soft fabric and told reporters, "For example, this fabric used to be hard hurt and easy to pilling. Last year, we made improvements, and now it has good pilling resistance, so we got a new order of more than 8 million yuan." He said, If you want to continue to develop in the textile and clothing industry, you must consider differentiation.

　　 Large and small enterprises have their own tricks

It took Lin Huilong 20 years from being a carpenter to owning 6 factories.

Lin Huilong is the founder of Jiangsu Maidai Clothing Co., Ltd. "I am an Anhui native. I came to Changshu in 1998 and learned carpentry in a redwood factory. After two years of study, I can earn 1000 yuan a month. I thought when can I go back to my hometown to build a house and ask for a wife? So I ran out of the factory to do business. At that time, a relative was doing printing and painting in the Zhaoshang Mall. I helped run the business and earned 'the first bucket of gold'."

"In 2003, I opened my first factory to produce trademarks on clothes." He smiled and recalled his experience of "being forced to operate". "The customer said that you should also take the tag, so I opened the tag factory. After two or three years, the customer asked again whether the packaging bags could be made. I opened the third and fourth factories successively."

In 2018, Lin Huilong opened a women's clothing factory, and three years later, he opened a men's clothing factory. Women's wear factory only makes overcoats, and men's wear factory only produces down jackets. "Although I have opened so many factories, each factory only produces one product. When making clothes, we are afraid of inventory, so we only choose one category to do it. When we sell out this season, we will prepare for the next quarter and concentrate on one thing. Because we control the market better, our sales increased last year," said Lin Huilong.

"At present, we are doing OEM, which is a bottleneck. In the future, I will definitely do my own brand, which is also our 'addition'. But I am not in a hurry to go out of this step, and I will do it when conditions are ripe in all aspects. Bosiden is my example," he said.

The down jacket giant Bosiden, an example of small and medium-sized enterprises, also gave the answer. On November 27 last year, Bosiden released the results of the first half of 2023/24 fiscal year. The financial report shows that the company's revenue and net profit have reached a record high for the same period for six consecutive years. Among them, down jacket business is the main source of income. In the first half of the fiscal year of 2023/24, the revenue of "Bosideng" brand down jacket steadily increased by 25.5% to about 4.421 billion yuan, a record high in the same period.

Bosiden has a strange way to reduce inventory. It is reported that as of September 30 last year, the number of days of inventory turnover of Bosiden Group was 160, 21 days less than the same period last year. "The company continued to maintain a low proportion of first orders, continued to use the adjustment mechanism of pull replenishment and quick return of small orders, and effectively promoted the integrated operation and management of omni channel commodities." The relevant person in charge of the enterprise introduced.

Nowadays, consumers' demands for breathability, windproof and rainproof of down jackets are increasing. To this end, Bosiden launched a three coat goose down jacket. With "breathing" as the key word, through the blessing of scientific and technological protective fabrics, bring professional protection and comfort experience to the wearer; The three in one detachable design further expands the use scenarios and gives full play to the brand advantages.

　 Digital exploration of the pain point

Ye Linsheng and Ye Lei are father and daughter, respectively the chairman and general manager of Changshu Senlan Textile Co., Ltd. "Our company is not large, with annual sales of less than 100 million yuan, and we do both domestic and foreign trade. It is said that small ships make a good turn. Last year, our revenue not only did not decline, but also increased." Ye Linsheng said.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when he was a factory director in a township enterprise, Ye Linsheng said a lot about entrepreneurship. "There is a threshold for foreign big brands to come to China to find cooperative manufacturers, such as the requirement that factory buildings should not be less than 10000 square meters, workers should not be less than 100 people, and sales should not be less than hundreds of millions... For small and medium-sized enterprises like us, many hard targets are not enough. But we also have our own way, and we focus on many small and scattered customers."

After graduating from the medical university, Ye Lei responded to her father's call and became a young manager of this enterprise. "Last year, we invested a lot online and spent the most. We increased more than 200 new customers, most of whom took the initiative to find. Some customers had very small orders, but we didn't give up." Ye Lei said, "because the return orders became regular customers, basically accounting for 30%, there will be a lot of orders accumulated."

In the eyes of the post-80s daughter, her father is avant-garde, and has given support to some of her "flying horses" like ideas. "We have also launched AR digital human marketing, which uses robots to mass send information, and then capture and match customer resources to give us feedback. Some people may say that this is a waste of money, but whether it has any effect will only be known after trying." Ye Lei said.

In the chain based clothing digital selection center, the reporter saw clothing from Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Huzhou, Shishi, Changshu and other sources.

"We are a clothing digital supply chain enterprise. The year before last, we came to Changshu to build this digital selection center, which aims to play the role of big data and bring one-stop services for retailers to 'choose - see - trade - perform'." Guo Tao, general manager of the Changshu region of Shanshu Technology, said that China's clothing industry has a production capacity of 10 trillion yuan, accounting for 60% of the world's total, However, domestic garment enterprises have little income, and the average profit rate of the industry is less than 10%. This huge difference shows a problem: the clothing industry market is large enough, and the pain points are painful enough.

In his opinion, the biggest pain point is inventory. To solve this problem, digitalization is the only direction. "The first step of the whole supply chain is to bring retail and supply together. We mainly serve small and medium-sized enterprises because they do not have a strong supply chain. At present, there are more than 20000 small and medium-sized enterprises on the platform," he said, "For example, when the factory has new models, we find suitable retailers through big data and algorithms, push these models to them, and guide the factory production according to their sales feedback. Through this platform, we can minimize the turnover days of inventory, which is our company's goal."

For Changshu Garment City, various digital explorations are just "addition" they are doing. According to the relevant person from the Management Committee of the Clothing City, Changshu Clothing City uses digital application technology to promote the development of new business forms of foreign trade. The first "Shicaitong" platform serves small, medium-sized and micro enterprises. In 2023, the annual export value of the platform will be 3.511 billion dollars, an increase of 29.91% year on year, and the cumulative number of service providers will exceed 16000. Changshu Garment City completed 290 million yuan of cross-border e-commerce B2B transactions in the whole year, up 51% year on year.

At the same time, Changshu Garment City continues to promote the branding, standardization and cluster development of the live broadcast e-commerce industry. At present, the growth of live broadcast e-commerce is strong. Last year, the online live broadcast transaction volume reached 65 billion yuan. The head anchors and businesses are competing to emerge, and there are 5 live broadcast businesses whose sales exceed 100 million yuan.

(Source: Xinhua Daily)