Reprinted from 36 Krypton Overseas
Yes, 80% of this year's Paris Olympics mascot, Frigidaire, is made in China.
Every four years, the Olympic Games bring together athletes from 206 delegations from all over the world to form a microcosm of the “World Village”. For the next two weeks, they will compete in the form of athletic contests and competitions, and then shake hands and make peace after deciding the winner.
It's all so similar to the way the economy works in the context of globalization. On the other side of the continent of Asia and Europe, Paris, through trading companies, cross-border platforms can easily reach the “Olympic business chain” to other countries and regions, to the far East of the commodity manufacturers to pass the Olympic “business spark”. Those who win the competition will reap the benefits of the Olympic economy.
Although the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee President Tony Estanguet said in 2018, “I hope that the Paris Olympic Games store will become a showcase for the art of living in France,” and the mascots and other peripheral designs are indeed refreshing, but the “made in China” printed on the merchandise is always understated. “made in China” printed on the merchandise, all in a low-key manifestation of the mysterious power of China's manufacturing.
Need to “prepare for the Olympics” not only athletes, but also as the world's small commodities end of Yiwu. As early as more than 100 days or even longer ago, the factory gears and workers' hands have begun to run at breakneck speed.
01. Yiwu merchants, preparing for the Olympics
In March, the Chinese Lunar New Year has just passed, want to do business in the Olympic Games at home and abroad merchants, have rushed to Yiwu, “goods”.
A sales of sports bracelets in Yiwu manufacturers, every year for different events to prepare for the special goods. From the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, to the 2022 Qatar World Cup, and now the 2024 Paris Olympics, he has learned that “this is a business of timeliness”.
Ordinary manufacturers not authorized by the Olympic Games, the production of bracelets can only be with a simple “flag” “sports” elements, most of the customers from overseas, just after the New Year's orders are pouring in. 3,000 bracelets is the base number of orders, and the number of orders from overseas customers can easily be more than a hundred thousand. The number of orders can easily be more than a hundred thousand. According to the Yiwu purchase platform, the purchase price of ordinary sports bracelets ranges from 0.5-09 yuan, while in Paris, France, a street corner, an unauthorized ordinary bracelets can also be sold to 1 euros.
This year, the largest number of orders from France, many dealers in French cities have purchasing needs. According to the manufacturer, the small flag of the order is also very high, a customer specifically ordered hundreds of thousands of “French small flag”.
When we contacted him, it was already July, and he told us with a little regret: “It's no longer a rush to buy.”
The production period of 20-30 days, shipping plus customs clearance at least a month, more importantly, because this is a timely business, most manufacturers do not want to stockpile, can only take orders, and then by the workers rushed to produce, so as to avoid the risk of inventory after the heat faded.
In this way, by July, Yiwu market has no sufficient stock.
The corresponding goods have long been shipped overseas, according to Yiwu Customs data show that in the first quarter of this year, Yiwu sporting goods exports totaled 22 billion yuan, up 46.2%. Among them, Yiwu's sporting goods exports to the EU 2.3 billion yuan, up 32.2%.
In accordance with the goods exported by the traditional foreign trade path of the necessary time to project forward, Yiwu's Olympic fever reached its peak in May, which is every manufacturer to pull overseas customer orders to make efforts to the “final window period.
Covering an area of more than 6.4 million square meters of Yiwu Trade City, is divided into five major areas, three of which are sporting goods area, the Olympic atmosphere is particularly strong.
In addition to the aforementioned bracelets, for other manufacturers who have not received official authorization or orders, support sticks, trophies, and even toys and accessories are good and popular choices. To cater to the Paris Olympics, as far as the eye can see, the stores selling related products in the Trade City are almost all in the red, blue and white French color scheme.
It's hard not to get caught up in it.
In the summer of the millennium, Liu Ruqun and her husband came to Yiwu with 200,000 savings to start a business, and since then has done 24 years of jewelry business. In March this year, heard by the Olympic Games, Yiwu's sporting goods sales soared, Liu Ruqun keenly aware of their own can also extend the development of related commodities.
Soon, she led the team to conceptualize and design a variety of red, blue and white color matching earrings jewelry, once the production launched in April, a few have been out of stock. “Recently, about the Olympic earrings jewelry sales than the style is indeed a little higher, almost 20% higher.” Liu Ruqun said.
As for the business of having the official authorization of the Paris Olympics, it began earlier, from the outside world is also more “hidden”. From the current situation, the official authorization of the specific manufacturers were publicly disclosed and not many.
A typical case is reported by Xinhua “1 million Olympic bracelets made in Yiwu, Yiwu in June last year, there are manufacturers received from the Olympic official drawings, after four months of sampling, production, assessment of the success of the 1 million official Olympic bracelet orders. The official authorized bracelet will be clearly marked with the logo of “PARIS 2024” compared with the Olympic peripheral bracelets produced by ordinary manufacturers.
Source: China Blue News
Cross-border merchants Mao Zhaofei and his more than 30 employees, some time ago just ended the European Cup peripheral merchandise overseas sales, according to his introduction: “The Olympic Games, the World Cup, such large international events authorization is very strict, such as this printed official elements of the product, there is no authorized merchants can not be sold, imitation, copyright infringement will be directly by the cross-border platform off the shelves, or in the customs when being investigated and dealt with. ”
The requirements for obtaining official authorization are also more stringent and the process is more complex.
First of all, the customers related to the official event will contact the domestic foreign trade company, entrusted foreign trade company to find a suitable manufacturer; subsequently, then through the commodity sampling, site visits and other links to verify the production capacity and qualifications; ultimately, to determine a good cooperation manufacturer, placed a high order.
02.World Supermarket Raising
Before the start of the race, the order information of the goods can reflect, not just the simple sales figures, in some moments, these figures foretell the future.
Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election vote, both the polls and the U.S. mainstream media believed that Hillary had a clear advantage, but it turned out to be a victory for Trump. While everyone was still in awe, Yiwu merchants inadvertently predicted the outcome by the detail that “more people bought Trump flags”.
In the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and other large-scale sports events, the same thing has been staged one after another, when the outside world for the results of the tournament is still uninformed, Yiwu merchants are able to through the amount of orders for goods, predict which team is the favorite to win the championship, or even the champion.
The legend of “Yiwu Index” has become popular.
Yiwu International Trade City has 75,000 business seats, each year to go to Yiwu procurement of foreign merchants more than 50 million people, last year, Yiwu's total imports and exports exceeded 560 billion. When trade is more and more frequent, a wide range of commodities on the shelves and off the shelves, the flow of supply and demand fluctuations and economic changes around the world, Yiwu is also known as “the end of the universe” “the world's supermarket.
Just as Rome was not built in a day, Yiwu was not built in a day.
Before 1982, Yiwu is located in the southeast hilly area surrounded by mountains on three sides, the slow development of the local economy, rumored to be “two roads, seven lights, a horn sounded the city”. With the 1982, Yiwu's earliest lake Qingmen Commodity Market was established, more than 100 stalls along the road on both sides of the open, Yiwu trade and commerce of the spark was first ignited.
Ten years later in 1992, Yiwu Commodity Market upgraded to the fourth generation, “Huangyuan Market” officially opened, Yiwu ushered in the “Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province, China Commodity City” officially named. At this time, although most businesses still rely on sales to earn a price difference, but the market stalls surged to more than 7,000, the initial formation of the scale effect.
In 1993, the status quo Yiwu people and launched a “business to promote industry, trade and industry linkage” strategy aimed at improving productivity to socks, jewelry, zippers and other categories of traditional industries, the rapid rise of Yiwu gradually completed the transformation from a sales market into a production center.
Yiwu international trade city entrance, hedgehog public security agency photographed
20 years later in 2002, the fifth generation of Yiwu commodity market “Yiwu international trade city” opened, the internationalization of business on the agenda. This year, has been living in Yiwu for two years, Liu Ruqun, in the new international trade city to get two stores, but also opened their own foreign trade business.
Another four years later, Yiwu international trade volume for the first time exceeded the amount of domestic trade, the beginning of the “World Supermarket”, marking the successful transformation of Yiwu from domestic trade to foreign trade.
“Business card” once played, manufacturers in Yiwu business success rate is naturally greater.
In recent years, more and more foreign buyers settled in Yiwu, take root, such as the World Cup, the Olympic Games and other international events, even if the customer is overseas, will take the lead in contacting Yiwu's foreign trade companies, so Yiwu local manufacturers have a greater probability of getting a large amount of orders in advance.
After a long period of development, the advantage of Yiwu manufacturers has long ceased to be a single low-cost production capacity, and more importantly, in fact, the formation of a cluster effect under the gathering of resources.
Last winter and this summer, cross-border merchants Mao Zhaofei twice to visit Yiwu, the biggest feeling is “the flow of information very quickly.
In Yiwu, every 10 stores have 9 in the foreign trade business, every 10 pieces of merchandise sold 6 pieces sold overseas, we eat at the table, a communication, basically which categories sell well, which categories of high unit price, what season to prepare which goods can be clear in mind.
At the same time, Yiwu and its surrounding upstream and downstream industries are mature enough. As a result of the “store in front of the factory” mode of production, Yiwu, behind each store stands a number of supply factories. In the producers, distributors, foreign trade companies, freight forwarding companies piled up a large number of background, Yiwu manufacturers can do “just heard the news on the dinner table, down to the dinner table on the start of production,” the superb execution.
A large number of orders to the Yiwu manufacturers and logistics providers, “bargaining” of the bottom line, in other places logistics unit price and then low can only talk about a piece of three or so, and Yiwu manufacturers will be able to pressure this figure to a dollar, or even a few cents.
Foreign trade trains also opened for Yiwu.
In 2014, the first “Yi Xin Europe” China-European Union train from Yiwu, the whole 13,000 kilometers, across the entire continent of Asia and Europe. According to the latest news, July 16, 10 days before the opening of the Paris Olympics, Yiwu Customs informed: “This year's China-EU liner (Yiwu) has exceeded 1,000 columns, a record high.”
03.The new era of small commodity business: faster, newer, stronger!
If “doing the world's business” is also regarded as a competition, then this competition also has its own Olympic spirit.
Although Yiwu has become a global customer attention business card, but from the public news disclosure of the Olympic Games official factory, in addition to the domestic Yiwu, there are other industries with factories to obtain production qualifications. This is actually inseparable from the rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms in recent years, around the online development of the sea business, reducing the difficulty of information flow, so that the rest of the domestic industrial belt in the acquisition of customers, operations, sales, there is a more convenient channel than ever before.
According to information, in March this year, Ali international station platform on the surge in sporting goods orders, exports to France, tennis clothing, customized sportswear, training helmets, outdoor sportswear, sports cameras and golf bags and other commodities export volume rose exponentially. Online sales boom on the one hand, the Olympic Games brought the heat continues to rise, on the other hand, also shows the online channel to broaden the huge potential of foreign trade merchants business.
Liu Ruqun is well aware of this, since July, her main customers from foreign businessmen into cross-border e-commerce business, she designed the red, blue and white color matching earrings sales are still rising. Online sellers are more agile and iterative than traditional foreign traders who finish stocking early.
“For our company, the logic of doing online business is 'choose the words first, then choose the products'.
For example, if we observe in the background that the keyword 'jersey' is very hot, we will contact the manufacturer within 1-2 days, and immediately go online to sell and ship overseas after rushing the work.” Mao Zhaofei explained.
Therefore, the overall operation of cross-border e-commerce faster, faster product updates and iterations, breaking the geographical limitations at the same time, but also allows manufacturers to quickly respond to market demand, so that goods made in China to reach global consumers at a faster pace.
Yiwu has not given up the opportunity for digital transformation either, after all, only by making the right choices in each wave of the times can we continue to stay at the poker table.
For the difference between online sales and offline traditional foreign trade, Liu Ruqun believes: “offline, the customer will place an order if they fancy, sell well will make up the order, the order is implemented very quickly. Online, then, manufacturers need to push the flow, photography, publicity, relatively speaking, not every style can be sold well, but the coverage will be very wide, consumers around the world can be reached.”
China's cross-border e-commerce is rising with amazing speed and diverse capabilities, showing remarkable resilience and innovation.
TikTok has made a strong entry with its huge traffic advantage, quickly attracting the attention of global consumers; SHEIN utilizes its in-house self-developed digital tools to quickly identify popular styles, analyze and track fashion trends in real time, forecast sales and control production with actual market demand, and quickly synergize with partner suppliers; Ali International also set up an AI team last year, and has in more than 40 scenarios AI capabilities were tested, empowering 500,000 small and medium-sized merchants and enabling the optimization of 100 million items.
These digital tools not only enhance the global competitiveness of Chinese goods, but also provide merchants with more accurate market analysis and sales forecasts.
Source: Interviewee
Late at night on July 26, Beijing time, less than two hours before the official opening of the Paris Olympics, Mao Zhaofei sent a few screenshots of the backstage one after another, and the search heat of the keyword “olympics 2024” increased by 282.3%, and the heat of the keyword “olympic flags” was even higher. The keyword “olympics 2024” has increased by 282.3%, and the keyword “olympic flags” has increased by 475%.
He and his in-house operations staff are still working on the selection of items and have contacted familiar factories to produce the peripheral merchandise. These items will be shipped overseas through a freight forwarder in a week's time, and with luck, he'll be able to ride the international tournament train again and make a killing.