Puyuan Fashion Week Puyuan Town offers
Jiaxing, December 29 (Reporter Hu Fengsheng) “Sunrise 10,000 horse silk, Jiahe a giant town”, Zhejiang Tongxiang’s Puyuan was once one of the five famous towns in Jiangnan during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and its Pu silk, Hangzhou spinning, lake crepe, and diamond satin are called “the four famous silks in Jiangnan”.
Today, Puyuan does not produce wool and is the world’s largest wool sweater distribution center.
In 2020, the Puyuan wool sweater market achieved an overall turnover of 108.9 billion yuan, and the freight turnover exceeded 500,000 tons. The town has 20 benchmark markets in business districts, more than 13,000 market shops, and a wool sweater industry chain built by more than 200,000 practitioners, which has made Puyuan’s wool sweater market realize the butterfly change of “from scratch and from something to excellent”.
Without producing a single wool and no geographical advantage, how did Zhejiang Puyuan pave the way for the wool sweater industry to enrich the people? From first wealth to common prosperity, why did Puyuan work? At a time when Zhejiang is building a high-quality development and common prosperity demonstration zone, what is its growth trajectory for thousands of townships in Zhejiang? Recently, a reporter from the China News Agency walked into Puyuan to understand its road to common prosperity.
Puyuan bustling night view provided by Puyuan Town
From scratch, there is the largest woolen sweater distribution center in the country
From Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, drive along the Lianhang Expressway for half an hour, and after turning to the Shenjiahu Expressway, with the rapid retreat of scenery and buildings, the atmosphere of Puyuan, a town closely connected to sweaters, began to emerge – the high-speed was lined with advertisements of “XX sweater base”, and large trucks came and went loaded with all kinds of sweaters or ready-to-wear.
“These sweaters will be sold from Puyuan to all parts of the country, even the world.” As a native of Puyuan, Wu Bingming, president of the Zhejiang Wool Sweater Association, was full of pride and pride.
In his opinion, the deepest impression of Puyuan from the outside world is that this Jiangnan town with a population of 200,000 and a history of more than 890 years has risen into a sweater fashion town with an area of 3.5 square kilometers in more than 40 years.
“We have a saying called ‘In the past, the world is famous, today sweaters are sold in the world.'” In fact, Puyuan’s textile has a long history, otherwise it would not have become the world’s largest professional sweater market. Wu Bingming said that the textile history of Puyuan can be traced back to the “Pu silk” that was famous at home and abroad in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there were poems praising “Puyuan silk in the sea”, so Pu silk also has the reputation of “the world’s first silk”. Guangxu’s “Tongxiang County Record” recorded: “(Pu silk) light and supreme, daily workers and moons, the name of Puyuan, reached the world.” ”
In the early days of reform and opening up, although the local wool sweater market began to show scale, it was not yet formed, and “people who came over” called it “road market”. “At that time, there were no shops or professional markets in Puyuan, and most of the buying and selling were done at farmers’ markets, on the street, and on the side of the road.” Wu Bingming introduced.
Chen Jiangen, 54 years old this year, is one of the members who once shuttled through this “road market”.
In 1988, Chen Jiangen, in his early 20s, switched from plasterer to sweater business. At that time, Puyuan’s wool sweater market was already well-known in the country, attracting a large number of northern merchants to come to purchase, but the channels were mainly local supply and marketing cooperatives.
“Some people can’t get the goods at the supply and marketing cooperatives, and they will go to the private side to get some.” So, Chen Jiangen, who saw the opportunity, used a temporarily idle machine at his relative’s house to learn to make a sweater.
In 1988, there were 259 individual enterprises like Chen Jiangen in Puyuan, with 1,540 woolen sweater flat knitting machines, with an output of 2.7 million pieces and an output value of nearly 100 million yuan.
Faced with such a large-scale market, Puyuan at that time followed the trend and raised 580,000 yuan to build the first local wool sweater and wool yarn trading market, which kicked off the prelude to the construction of Puyuan wool sweater market. Merchants flocked to the city, and Puyuan gradually became the largest woolen sweater distribution center in China.
Puyuan fashion market Photo by Zhou Sunyu
Aiming at the new fashion, Puyuan opened the “sell the world” model
Nowadays, the cold winter is the peak season for the sale of sweaters in Puyuan. During this time, the town’s weaving mills, sewing factories, ironing factories, brand manufacturers, wholesale stalls, etc., were very busy. Design new products, step up shipments, live broadcast sales… Enterprises, stores, and live broadcast merchants have come up with their “housekeeping skills”.
“All goods have after-sales, so you can rest assured.” “3, 2, 1, on the link!” In Puyuan, there are thousands of such large and small live broadcasts every day, and it is not unusual to “bring goods live”. But the “sweater sister” Wang changed the land, something unusual.
52 years old this year, with her enthusiastic and hearty personality, in just a few years, she has become an “Internet celebrity anchor” with more than 1 million fans on a platform, with a total monthly live broadcast sales of nearly 5 million yuan.
In 2016, the “sweater sister”, who has been in the sweater business in her hometown for more than 20 years, made a bold decision and came to Puyuan alone to “start a second business”. “It’s really nice here, the whole market sells cardigans and the variety is very large. What’s more, there are shops and factories in front of and factories in the back, so you no longer have to worry about the supply chain! Wang Gai said that his sweater dream landed in Puyuan.
The prosperity of live streaming e-commerce has allowed Puyuan’s entrepreneurs to see new sales outlets. By giving full play to the advantages of Puyuan’s supply and distribution center, not only can the cost be minimized, but the richness of products and the scale of production capacity can also be optimized.
As a result, outsiders from the north and south of the world began to pour into Puyuan, chasing the dream of becoming rich.
As a “young second generation”, Zhu Jiaqi, general manager of Puyuan Textile City, keenly grasped the “pulse” of e-commerce. In December 2020, Zhu Jiaqi docked with Douyin officials and established the “Puyuan Douyin E-commerce Live Broadcast Base”, integrating anchor resources through the model of “anchor + e-commerce + live broadcast + cluster”, helping enterprises and merchants accelerate the transformation of live broadcasting, and achieving live broadcast sales of more than 1 billion yuan.
“New communication methods such as cross-border e-commerce and live broadcasting, new channels are in line with the traditional sweater industry, which can better integrate new advantageous resources and apply them to industrial development.” Zhu Jiaqi said that as a service provider in the sweater professional market, they provide free open classes to market merchants every Sunday, help merchants build a live broadcast framework, popularize platform entry rules, upload quality inspection reports, etc., to help the Puyuan sweater industry achieve transformation and upgrading.
Stand on the cusp of the industry, accurately grasp the market, boldly practice, and walk in the forefront of the fashion industry… Such a model is creating another round of glory in the Puyuan sweater industry.
“New design, new material, new format, new manufacturing, new model… Puyuan’s sweater industry is moving towards ‘new fashion’. In Wu Bingming’s view, at present, Puyuan’s sweater companies have explored many transformation paths.
From January to October 2021, the Puyuan wool sweater market achieved a turnover of 89.729 billion yuan, of which the e-commerce turnover was 39.6 billion yuan, and the logistics freight turnover was 381,800 tons, avoiding the impact of the epidemic and achieving the goal of “not light in the off-season”. According to Luo Guoliang, mayor of Puyuan Town, the local area is actively promoting the pilot work of cross-border e-commerce incubation, opening up “Amazon incubation classes”, opening up overseas markets, and opening the Puyuan wool sweater “selling globally” model.
Wang changed the land during the live broadcast Photo by Zhou Sunyu
The huddle model of “common prosperity through production”
Since the reform and opening up, in the past 40 years, the sweater industry in Zhejiang Puyuan has achieved a butterfly change of “from scratch and from something to excellent”. However, the “proudest” local “proud” is that through the development of advantageous industries, the 200,000 local and surrounding people have become rich, and they have embarked on a road of relying on industry to develop and enrich the people.
Located in Yongyue Village, the core location of the Puyuan sweater market, it is the biggest beneficiary.
“Eat mountains by the mountains, eat the sea by the sea.” We mainly focus on the sweater market and do some supporting services. Zhuang Minghuo, secretary of the village’s party committee, told reporters that in 2020, the village-level economic income of Yongyue Village exceeded 15 million yuan, and the collective economy continued to grow through the rental of store departments, village-level assets, standard factory buildings, and dividends from a number of huddle projects.
“As long as the world’s top sweater designers and brands come to Puyuan to find the supply chain as long as they come out with new models, we can deliver in less than 3 days.” Zhuang Minghuo said that due to industrial concentration, the Puyuan sweater market has given birth to a complete industrial chain covering spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing, finishing, accessories, machinery manufacturing, inspection and testing, packaging, scientific and technological services, market transactions, etc., building an industrial chain pattern of “town and village integration”, living in the village and working in the town, which has become a common scene in Puyuan.
Nowadays, under the background of Zhejiang’s high-quality development of common prosperity demonstration zone, strong villages such as Yongyue Village have helped economically weak villages to invest in Tongxiang city-level huddle projects such as Jusheng Business Park and Digital Fashion Star City in the form of group funding, which not only solves the problem of intensive utilization of resources, but also forms a good atmosphere of helping the rich first and then getting rich and taking the road of moderate prosperity together.
In 2020, the average annual income of the 13 administrative villages in Puyuan reached 5.62 million yuan, leading nearly 100 villages to achieve rolling development.
From poverty to prosperity, to common prosperity. In Puyuan, the 200,000 local people are becoming the main body of reform and the wealth masters of the results of reform.
In 2020, the per capita disposable income of rural residents in Puyuan reached 42,017 yuan, far exceeding the average level of Jiaxing and Zhejiang provinces. “In the future, we will focus on the two development goals of ‘China’s first fashion town’ and ‘world-class knitting fashion industry cluster’, and strive to embark on a road of common prosperity with the characteristics of Puyuan.” Yu Wujun, member of the Standing Committee of the Tongxiang Municipal Party Committee and secretary of the Party Committee of Puyuan, said that during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, Puyuan will build a fashion industry cluster with a whole industry chain of more than 100 billion yuan, and the overall transaction volume of online and offline markets will exceed 200 billion yuan, which is the “small goal” set by Puyuan for itself… (End)
Source: China News Network