Pu Yuan Sweater: The First Town Of Chinese Sweater Has No Double Eleven

In the hinterland of the Yangtze River delta plain, there is a small town with an area of only 60 square kilometers. It is located in the middle nodes of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. It has been bathed in the first spring breeze after reform and opening up, and is enjoying the convenience of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou.

The name of this town is called Pu Yuan. It has a reputation as the first town of Chinese sweater. Data from a local official proved the name: in 2018, more than 700 million sweaters were sold in the town. There are 20 specialized markets, more than 11000 business households and 120 thousand employees. And, the annual sales volume of 38 billion yuan and a "Pu Yuan sweater" regional brand value evaluation is 8 billion 569 million yuan.

43 years ago, Pu Yuan was born the first sweater. Since then, over the past 40 years and more, people in this town have been working in a personal and family unit. Almost everyone is engaged in work related to sweaters. It has created the most complete sweater knitted industrial cluster in the country's industrial chain, and won the reputation of "Chinese sweater watching Pu Yuan", and has produced many front-line brands and entrepreneurial myths.

Over the past few years, with the prosperity of the electricity supplier, Pu Yuan has gone through another round of shuffling. Now, like the development process of China's electricity supplier, it is also faced with the contradiction from the traditional electricity supplier to the emerging electricity supplier, and the confusion in the process of transformation from China to China.

One

800 years of history of sweater town

Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, October 19th. It's more than 80 kilometers away from Pu Yuan.

The purpose of zinc marking is to go to Pu Yuan to see for herself on the eve of the eleventh double eleven. This town, which rises because of a sweater, meets the annual test of the electricity supplier industry with a gesture.

There are two ways to go to Puyuan. They take the airport bus, go to Wuzhen, turn to Puyuan, or ride on a free ride. This is the way most people use to go to Puyuan. They deliver, buy and receive.

The zinc scale reporter also called a ride. On the way, when the master learned that the reporter was not a local resident, his guesswork was: "are you a designer? Come to plate making, right?"

This speculation is not surprising. To this chef master, he himself opened a weaving factory in Pu Yuan. Recently, it was the peak season of the industry. He had come to the airport to pick up a customer. But the flight was cancelled temporarily, so he answered the reporter's list.

30 minutes after leaving the airport, with the rapid retreat of scenery and architecture, the smell of the town, which is closely connected with sweater, is beginning to grow stronger. Some buildings around the expressway have been advertising on the "XX sweater base".

"These sweaters will be sold from this town to all parts of the country, even around the world." The master's voice was full of pride.

About one hour, with the introduction of the "Tongxiang sweater fashion town" sign, this is Pu Yuan. The reporter is in the vicinity of the Expo Center, which is a commercial center centered on the original designer brand. The purpose is to unite Chinese original designers, superior supply chain and small and medium-sized enterprises with R & D capability to build a national high-end clothing innovation base.

"Unfortunately, you are a little late, and 2019 China Pu Zhou fashion week has just been held here." At least about one hundred thousand designers from all over the world, as well as hundreds of sweaters in fashion show, is a gorgeous event.

This home's sweater sweater factory, but part-time car driver's master, for the zinc scale failed to witness this event, and regret, and for zinc scale, the deepest impression is in the outside reports, this population of 200 thousand or 890 years of long history of the south of the Yangtze River town, 40 years ago only from a green rice field rise, expand into a 3.5 square kilometers of sweater fashion features town.

"But actually, Pu's textile history is much longer than the outside world, or it will not be possible to suddenly weave a woollen yarn into China's largest sweater market." An old man in Puyuan town said that the history of Pu Yuan's textile industry should be traced back to the "Pu silk" which was renowned both at home and abroad in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

A book written by Chu Chuan in the Jiaqing year recorded this history. Over 800 years ago, the Song Dynasty suffered from internal and external troubles. Pu Feng, a native of Qufu, Shandong, drove south to the Li Po market, which is today's Puyuan. "The village of Wu Tong, the latter residence of the river, is called" phoenix tree ", which is suitable for the house. Since then, Pu Yuan has opened a new page and laid the foundation for the subsequent sweater textile industry.

After liberation, with the development of Chinese society, Pu Yuan has also ushered in a new look. Along with the emergence of the self-employed economy, in 1979, the first sweater factory set up by individual fund-raising was unveiled. Since then, individual woolen sweaters have mushroomed. By 1988, a sweater trading market, which was built by more than 50 multi-purpose businesses, has sprung up from the sweater wholesalers all over the country.

More than 30 years ago, the market of Pu Yuan sweater, though many people still adopt the traditional production and sales mode of the front shop, is also a typical frontier of China's reform and opening up.

Transferred from the Corps silk factory to the Tongxiang cultural system, and then became Su Huimin, a full-time photographer of the photographic studio of Hou Bo and Xu Xiaobing, Tongxiang. For decades, she used camera to record the changes of Puyuan. In his classic photo taken in the winter of 1989, the boss of the Puyuan sweater market, a mink fur coat, was riding a motorcycle with a full face and holding a cell phone to contact the customer.

At that time, a big cell phone would cost ten thousand or twenty thousand yuan, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of yuan now. For the Pu Yuan people walking in the forefront of China's economy, "maybe it's only a small sum of money, but a symbol of status and status".

But at that time, the Pu Yuan people would not have thought that this sweater town would be completely changed by a Hangzhou man dozens of kilometers away.

Two

The wealth and confusion brought by traditional electricity providers

Every morning, there is always the sound of firecrackers coming out of the window. The locals told reporters that this is the custom of a small town, and a new firecracker will be symbolically placed on the opening of a new stall. In this "golden nine silver ten" season, Pu courtyard ushered in the annual peak season, the sound of firecrackers will be lively.

As the largest sweater base in the country, every peak season and "double eleven" always bring people to and fro in the town of Pu Yuan. Local weaving factories, sewing factories, ironing factories, brand manufacturers, wholesale stalls and so on are always very busy. In the town of Pu Yuan, a road called "trade and industry Boulevard" is sold on both raw materials and clothing. If you are a beginner in sweater business, you can almost meet the basic needs in this street.

And on both sides of the road is a dense facade. In the front of the shop, there are carefully arranged samples, and a pile of parcels on top of the door confirms the prosperity of the electricity supplier in the town of Pu Yuan.

Feng Jie's shop is on the fourth block of the industrial and trade Boulevard, which is the worst location, and is also the least expensive rental block. She came from the northeast to make a sweater business in Pu Yuan, and this year is the twelfth year.

12 years ago, Alibaba just listed in Hongkong. Zhang Yong, Jing Xiandong and Wu Wei, who have played an important role in the development of Alibaba in the three days, have just joined. At the same time, Pu Yuan, which has only one hour's drive from Hangzhou, is also undergoing dramatic changes due to the rise of the electricity supplier.

"When we first arrived in 2007, the rental of the street was 40 thousand yuan a month, although the price was already very expensive for the price at that time, but the business was really good at that time." When Feng came, she met the good opportunity for the development of the electricity supplier. The monthly rent of tens of thousands of yuan could be increased several times.

"The volume of online shipments is totally comparable to the volume of shops sold." Think of the scene that was packaged in the shop late into the night every day, as the first nuggets in the electricity supplier, Feng Jie still can not conceal the happiness of that year.

The early bird catches the worm. When it comes to online shopping, many businessmen just stay in curiosity, so the situation of supply exceeds demand. "At that time, business was so good that we were out of stock all day long. In order to get our customers online, we were still calling the shop owner to reserve goods in the middle of the night."

"There is no need for promotion at all?"

Feng Jie issued a burst of laughter, "still advertised? Often goods are not enough to sell, sometimes forget to order according to the order, but also be scolded by buyers!"

Indeed, the Internet has opened a door to open the whole country's circulation. Vigorous demand is coming, and the market is hot, but no businessmen who have tasted the sweetness really see the development time of the electricity supplier.

The electricity supplier boom is fast. All business people understand that the closer the source is, the lower the cost is, and the scale of the product and the scale of the business can be optimized.

Therefore, overnight, the influx of Pu Yuan many outsiders, they have spotted this opportunity, want to roll up their sleeves and do a big job. Or alone here, hire one or two small workers to work together, or wife, children, parents together to move over, rent a shop to eat, live and work are all here, "rooted here for a few years, we will go back to the old age", holding Li Gen like a pseudonym, like a lot of outsiders, to the entire family to earn enough future savings, go back to a quiet life.

But the plan never changes quickly. After a brief rush, the electricity supplier atmosphere is increasingly strong, and Pu Yuan also ushered in the Internet era of confusion and bottlenecks.

"New people do not behave well. I earn 5 yuan for a garment. He has to earn 4 yuan. Later, every household began to fight price war, and also caused the price of online shop to be cheaper than entity wholesale. " The price war in 2010 made Feng Jie, an old businessman, a little bit unprepared.

Burning money, killing the price, a war without gunpowder has covered a cold and bloody life for the Pu Yuan. The simple and brutal price war has led many businesses to be "killed". Even better, like Feng Jie, "busy working for only one year is enough to pay rent, electricity and water." at that time, most people did not realize that this test came from the market and industry development.

Fortunately, Yin Xuerui (alias) realized that the electricity supplier of Pu Yuan needs to be changed.

In 2012, Yin Xuerui, who opened a shop in Pu Yuan, did two things. One was to go to Korea, to study the fashion design of fashion learning, and the two was to invite professional photographers and models to produce an atlas of products at a high price. "Price war is not a permanent solution. Good product is the golden rule."

This year, Yin Xuerui worked with Korean designers. His clothes broke the same pattern of Pu's sweater. This year, Yin Xuerui registered exclusive trademark for the clothes he made, and set up his own brand through packaging and selling products with the album. This year, Yin Xuerui became the leading figure of Pu Yuan, and he was constantly in search of business with goods. This year, under the impetus of Yin Xuerui's pioneers, Pu electric business has been moving towards improving the quality of products and strengthening brand awareness from the emphasis on impulse delivery.

Under the injection of new thinking, Pu Yuan once again welcomed the change. After a round of changes and shuffling, the position of Pu Yuan in the era of electric power sweaters has been stabilized.

Now, in the face of the coming eleventh double eleven, the sweater town seems to be faced with a new challenge.

Three

Quiet and surging ahead of double eleven

Along the streets of Pu Yuan Town, zinc scale reporter found that it was not as busy as imagined. Before coming, he thought that all the people in the town of Pu Yuan had already strained their strings, preparing for the double eleven from dawn to dusk. But in fact, although the factories in Fuyuan town started work and the market was bustling, but most of them were very indifferent when asked whether they were preparing for the double eleven. "In November, there is still time to prepare," Chen Ming told the zinc scale.

Chen Ming Ben is a native of Jiangsu Province. He came here two years ago. The reason is simple: "to earn money". Chen Ming clearly knows that compared with the surrounding sweaters, Honghe and other sweater bases, the electricity supplier's environment is more mature and the industrial chain is more complete, so although the cost of Pu Yuan's operation is higher, it still has enough attraction.

For the eleven businessmen on the eve of the calm, Chen Ming told the zinc scale, merchants are divided into two kinds of attitudes. One is to make a big effort on this day. But after all these years, the experience of the war is very rich, and the businessmen are very familiar with it.

"From fun marketing to opening pre-sale, and then to production stocking, now the cycle is longer than before, and production capacity, upstream and downstream coordination, logistics are very mature, so the surface looks very calm."

Another way of doing business is to decide not to take part in the 10th one early on the basis of the operation of the year, or even to close the door on the same day. "No matter which electronic business platform to participate in the double eleven activities, all need to reduce prices, coupled with the platform Commission, deducting the use of coupons, originally very weak profit margins may have been unable to support such activities subsidies."

Businessmen for the common sense of double eleven, in addition to revealing the rational judgment and understanding of the Pu Yuan merchants themselves and the market, also revealed an important signal. In these eleventh years, the domestic business platform continues to subdivide and upgrade, and the old school business model shows signs of fatigue.

In the town of Pu Yuan, on the eve of 5G, there was a whole new excitement.

Four

Electricity supplier live mode, breaking the stand

With the rapid development of the electricity supplier, the crisis brought about by many people has made a lot of changes. Yin Xuerui is one of them.

One morning, Yin Xuerui took a zinc scale to visit a new building on the main road. A closer look, the name of the building is "Zhejiang sweater fashion industry innovation service complex". It sounds very complicated, but Yin Xuerui tells the zinc scale that this is actually an incubator to help people who want to innovate and change clothes. And he came here, it is hoped that through the entry, to develop new e-commerce business.

According to the relevant staff, the project is based on the guidance document of Zhejiang science and Technology Department, combined with the development of the sweater fashion industry in Tongxiang, with the design of the landmark 320 creative Plaza as the carrier, bringing together innovative resources elements, creating an industrial innovation service complex, and achieving a full chain service system from project research to industrial incubation.

The zinc scale can be seen here. The supporting facilities such as shared offices, conference rooms and tea break areas from 2 to 5 floors are quite complete, and the price is far lower than the external market rents. More attractive, however, lies in the 6 layers of free creative exhibition hall and trend studio, as well as all kinds of net red punch points provided by outdoor rooftop gardens, so that they can be easily photographed and broadcast live.

"Actually, at the beginning of this year, I wanted to invite people to do the live broadcast, because this year's business environment is not doing live broadcast without business. But in Hangzhou, I really do not have the convenience of managing factories. Because of the reason for the distance, Yin Xuerui has stranded the live broadcast plan before, but now he sees that the more prosperous the live business is, the more traditional the development of the electricity supplier is, so Yin Xuerui decides to put the live broadcast plan on the agenda again.

His idea coincides with the original intention of the "320 innovation project". The staff said, in fact, they also saw the development of Pu Yuan in the field of electricity business in recent years, and the bottlenecks encountered at present, so they decided to give some substantial concessions to help the entire Pu Yuan to revitalize.

Out of the building, Yin Xuerui called the partner's phone and told the other side that he had found a very good place to start the program. Hang up the phone, Yin Xuerui couldn't hide his excitement and became more and more obvious. As he walked, he looked back at the place that might bring him new opportunities. His mouth was still talking about whether to choose the smallest 45 square meter room first, try the water, or choose a big one directly.

　 Five

Reporter's note: old clothing city needs a new revolution.

In the four days of her stay in Pu Yuan Town, zinc scales saw many contradictions. For example, the zinc scale met a market in the market called Cheng Kaiyun (alias), the rent is fair in the collection of rents. After asking, it was known that the front of the trade and industry Avenue was 1 million 250 thousand yuan a year, and some tenants and even a year's profits could not reach that amount.

Cheng Kai Yun saw the reporter's face, and took the initiative to say, "where do the young people do business? Come over to see the money? The clothing business is not easy to do." Later, the other tenants on the other side told reporters that Cheng Kai Yun was the first group of people to get rich by relying on the clothing business. Later, after buying the factory and the shop front, they settled down to be a rentals.

For example, in the market of "romantic Hangzhou Street", Wu Xinrui, a wife of the boss, and her husband run a shop specializing in woolen coats. Although it is always a mess to pack and deliver every day, she will dress up before going out, "after all, there are many customers." She thinks that dressing up is a respect for others.

When bored, she likes to use the phone to brush the live broadcast of the business. Speaking, she showed her ability to identify the source of goods to the reporters. "This style is Hebei goods at the first glance, but it doesn't look good on our side." "This is a Guangzhou product. It's a bit of a western style, but it's a little expensive." In addition, she also likes to comment on the live net red model. When the reporter advised her to learn to live in an electronic business and attract more traffic, she did not want to, "I can not speak, and do not like to show up." Wu Xinrui shook his head with a smile.

But what is more dramatic is that the clothes people here have been roughly divided into three categories: tradition, swing and change. Feng Jie, an example of the traditional school, is still guarding the business that has not been changed in the past ten years. If profits are not enough to support the rent, it will be closed for home. For example, the swinging school, taking Yin Xuerui as an example, sees that the businessmen who are doing the live broadcast of the electricity supplier and the new platform become rich and want to change, but they have not found the way.

In the face of these three kinds of people, there has been a change in the town of Pu Yuan. There are real support projects such as "320 innovation projects". There are also many projects that are actually useless in order to rub the heat. On the industrial and commercial road, zinc scales saw many buildings, such as "live supply, explosive wholesale" and "red live broadcasting base of electric business network". However, when they came closer, they did not see much excitement. Most businesses were doing traditional businesses.

In this complex "China sweater first city", there is no shortage of professional clothing people, good electricity supplier atmosphere, mature industry environment, but the only thing lacking is a power that can promote its transformation and upgrading. Fortunately, however, the "Yin Xuerui" has gradually become the mainstay of the new business people in Pu Yuan town. Their ingenuity and urgent change will also affect the upgrading of the entire Pu Yuan electric business. The eleventh years of double eleven will be a year of change for all of Pu Yuan.