Xuzhou: New Life in Traditional Fur Industry

People can only look at the splendid factory buildings and towering chimneys at the time of the great development of the industry. And who would have thought that more than ten years later, an accidental “electric shock” has revived the traditional industries here in “another spring”, making it a well-known “Taobao Village”.

In the new section of the Mohe Street in Xinyi City, the locals also habitually called Xin Duan Village. The village is next to Xinyi Railway Station and Xuhai Road passes through the village. If we say that the new north of Jiangsu Province, the new section is the throat of Xinyi, merchants have gathered since ancient times.

The new section of the community does not seem to be famous. However, in the new Duancun Village in the old Mohe Township, the older people of the new age were all impressed by the splendid glory here. It used to be the seat of the township government. At the beginning of the reform and opening up, it was the industrial center of the entire Xinyi area. There were factories within a radius of more than 10 kilometers.

Time flies, the glory of the past is now set in the yellowing old photos. Now, people can only look at the splendid factory buildings and towering chimneys at a time when the industrial development of the city was very grand. And who would have thought that more than ten years later, an accidental “electric shock” has revived the traditional industries here in “another spring”, making it a well-known “Taobao Village”.

In early spring, the reporter came to the new section.

Small village business

In the spring, the new section of the community is very lively—a fur shop is carrying a family, and a piece of imitation leather clothing in the window shows Xu Hailu's extravagance, which is in stark contrast to the old factory building that was broken behind the shop. The big trucks shuttled and the girls swam in groups.

The spring breeze also "lived" those old factories. On the south side of Xuhai Road, Wang Lin, 45, rented an old factory building of nearly a thousand square meters and opened a "grand fur processing factory." Although it is not the peak sales season, the factory is still roaring with machinery and raw materials and garments are full of warehouses.

In the row-by-side small factories on both sides of Xuhai Road, Wang Lin’s “grand” is relatively large. "From cutting, garments to online sales, all are in the factory, recruiting more than a dozen workers." Wang Lin said that the village's imitation fur factory is basically on both sides of Xuhai Road, where convenient transportation and advanced logistics. "When you do business, you pay attention to a master."

Like “grand”, the new section of clothing made of chemical fiber raw materials has the appearance of a suede. The price is only a few tenths of that of real skin, and is deeply loved by young women. In recent years, the new section of the fur industry has gradually become a climate. In September last year, the village became the first batch of “e-commerce model villages” in the province.

How many imitation fur production workshops and factories are there in the new section? Feng Xianwen, deputy director of the community, replied: Now almost every month, several new plants are opened. Like “grand,” the conservative estimate is that there are three or four hundred, each year Sales are in the millions of dollars.

Xinyi City Bureau of Commerce statistics show that: in 2014, New Duancun opened more than 800 online stores on Alibaba, Taobao and other e-commerce platforms, annual sales of 86 million yuan, and more than 3,000 related employees, and e-commerce realized per capita annual income 30,000 yuan... Nowadays, more than half of the imitation fur coats and coats that are sold online in China are from here.

New opportunities for the old business

Xu Hailu North, Wang Xueli's "Ge language fur clothing" boutique boutique exquisite decoration. Wang Xueli is full of self-confidence for his own clothes: “I hired the villagers who had decades of experience, hand-cutting fast and good, fashionable styles, and solid quality.” Wang Xueli said that because the raw materials are chemical fiber products, Machine hot cutting produces a charred skin, resulting in a high customer return rate, and her home hand-cut product does not have this problem at all.

The “master teacher” mentioned by Wang Xueli came from the fur processing factory that had been set up in Xin Duancun. In the 1980s and 1990s, New Duancun was once a famous fur crafts processing base in the country. During the peak period, the village collectively set up 3 fur processing plants to produce various types of wool animal toys. They participated in the Canton Fair every year, winning all year round, and all the products were exported for foreign exchange.

“After 1997, the leather-making factory would not be able to do so.” Zhu Shuqian, the master teacher, said that due to the economic crisis and other factors, most fur processing companies stopped production. Many new sections went to the field. In the fur city of Yiwu, Zhejiang, many wholesalers come from the new section.

From afar to returning home to entrepreneurship, the 50-year-old Shi Sichao is a witness to the rise and fall of the new segment of fur, and is also an early seller of e-commerce platform to sell imitation fur products. “When I went to Yiwu, I created a brand for the new fur products in Commodity City and International Trade City. The products are exported to all parts of the world.” He said that at that time, Yiwu sent orders to the new section and the new section was processed. Then send it to Yiwu. "You can earn 670,000 yuan a year and you're also considered high income."

Shi Shichao had no idea at that time. Ten years later, the “electric shock” not only made the traditional fur industry in the new segment rejuvenate, but also opened up a new world for the local economic development in related fields.

Shi Sichao believes that the successful transformation of new paragraph fur through e-commerce is not only an inevitable development of the times, but also related to the promotion of his son Shi Guangji.

After the "90s," Shi Guangji wore a new trend and thought-defensive. He went to Yiwu with his father in his early years and completed his university studies at the Yiwu Business School. He graduated from the e-commerce "Caiban", not only has a keen sense of the market, but also from the bones with a new paragraph ** courage to innovate and dare to think of the spirit of courage.

In 2010, their home shop opened. Initially, only a few pieces were sold each month. However, through constant learning and exploration of accumulated products and good reputation, online shop operations are booming. In just 4 years, the online shop started selling several thousand dollars a year, and later tens of thousands of dollars, up to a few hundred thousand dollars today.

The success of the Shijia shop has played an exemplary role in the village. The villagers followed suit, and a family fur sales shop opened the shop.

The revival of the traditional fur industry has also attracted the entrepreneurial and investment enthusiasm of some local drifters. The salesman Cao Feng said: “I used to work outside the house all the year round. The old man didn’t have time to honor and the children didn’t have time to educate them. He always felt embarrassed at the family. Later he saw that his hometown e-commerce business was developing well and he came back. Now he has not only his own business, but also It's important that the family is together."

Now in the new section, the rapid development of the imitation fur e-commerce industry has brought about dramatic changes in the village's appearance, the people’s income, and even the concept of development.