Sweaters get boost with virtual sales platform

Chen Baizhen briefs to his colleagues on the company's vision. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Growing up in Puyuan, a town 30 kilometers away from Wuzhen in Zhejiang province, Chen Baizhen saw his parents grow their sweater factory, from a family workshop to a large company.

The small town of 64 square kilometers is home to China's sweaters, producing 70 percent of these garments. In 2014, sales revenue of the town's sweaters exceeded 28 billion yuan ($4.3 billion).

But in Chen's eyes, the current success of the industry in Puyuan is far from satisfactory.

"While manufacturers like my parents are still thankful for the high sales records, they miss the fact that as early as 2012, sales revenue on Taobao.com reached 19 billion yuan for just one day," he said.

The 25-year-old said that he believes the Internet is the only way out for this traditional industry in Puyuan, and connecting its channels to e-commerce is a must.

After graduating from Aston University of the United Kingdom in 2012, he started his own Internet-related business in Puyuan.

Chen discovered that most sweater manufacturers had an awareness of e-commerce but they did not know how to operate their e-commerce platforms and produce sweaters that truly meet customers' needs.

"Top-sellers are always retailers, not manufacturers, so I was thinking about providing services to help those manufacturers to run their e-commerce better," he said.

Chen said that he still remembers the first case he accepted, to run a Taobao shop that was on the edge of closing down.

Working hard for a month, his team helped the shop's sales rise from nothing to 300,000 yuan. After operating more than 100 successful cases, Chen started to construct an Internet platform for sweater manufacturers that can respond quickly to market demands.

"The development of the Internet allows purchasing to become small in quantity and diversified in styles. This is a big challenge for traditional manufacturers," he said.

Based on this, Chen established zhaohuoma.com, a platform that links retailers directly to manufacturers who can see customers' needs in advance by analyzing data provided by retailers.

"Since the platform was launched in August, we have successfully reduced the time from placing orders to sales from 30 days to only five days," he said.

Within less than six months, the platform has already attracted more than 30 factories and 1,600 purchasing agencies.

"I am considering integrating more production elements like raw materials, designers and idle equipments under one platform so that manufacturers can make full use of them," he said.

Now, Puyuan has more than 10,000 online shops for the sweater industry, contributing one third of the town's total sweater sales.

Qian Weiguo, director of Puyuan Administration Committee, said that Chen's platforms help the town to promote its industry.

"It is essential for the whole town to establish an integrated smart industrial cluster that can help this traditional industry to move up the value chain," he said.