Nantong launches B2B textile portal

Platform expected to innovate industry, Hao Nan, Ye Guo and Li Tong report.

Efforts by the Nantong government to upgrade the local home textile industry's information level started to pay off as China's first business-to-business e-commerce platform in the industry officially went online at the city’s home textile center in Chuanjiang township on Oct 22.

Zhaohuo.com is a textile product sales portal devoted to providing one-stop procurement solutions for small and medium-sized companies nationwide and help reduce their operational costs by integrating services of logistics, warehousing and financial resources.

"The platform will further innovate marketing channels and operating models of the home textile industry," said Shao Aijun, director of the center's administrative committee and Party chief of Chuanjiang township.

The home textile center sends an average of more than 200,000 packages containing products ordered on the Internet every day, enabling Chuangjiang to make the list of the 19 Chinese regions with the most Taobao orders issued by Alibaba Group, owner of the online shopping portal, at the end of last year. It is the only location in Nantong, Jiangsu province, to make the list.

The center, which is home to more than 60 SMEs, is also building an e-commerce area.

The opening of Zhaohuoe.com was announced during the second day of an annual international fabric designs fair that has the center as its permanent venue.

The eighth China Home Textile Drawings Fair attracted 158 Chinese and overseas design companies under the theme of "integrating design resources and leading fashion trends".

More than 30 designers from 20 foreign companies showcased more than 2,000 designs.

Massimo Nanni, an Italian fabric designer at Armani and Dolce & Gabbana, attended the fair for the first time. He displayed more than 100 designs, including 20 hand-painted manuscripts, which “represent the latest fashion trends internationally”, he said.

Norio Saito, a Tokyo designer who has worked in home textile designs for 30 years, said it was his fifth time to participate in the event.

"Most of my designs are flowers with exquisite patterns, aiming to better meet the aesthetic tastes of Chinese households," he said.

The event also attracted a large number of professional buyers from China and abroad.

Wang Yuesheng, owner of a local bed linen fabric store, said he buys patterns by foreign designers every time he attends the event to enrich his products, because they are unique aesthetic creations due to the different ways of thinking between the East and the West.

The fair was first held in September 2008 and attracted 70 Chinese companies and art design colleges, most of which were based in Nantong.

Since the third fair, in 2010 foreign home textile design companies from countries including Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, India and Japan have also attended.

To date, the event has hosted more than 1,300 renowned Chinese and overseas design companies and displayed nearly 250,000 original designs. About 25,000 designs have been sold, with a combined value of 55 million yuan ($8.67 million).

The fair has not only helped Nantong home textile products “go abroad” during recent years, but also introduced the latest international designs to the city, local officials said.

One of the world’s largest home textile trading centers, the Nantong center is now home to 120 design institutes, who create more than 30,000 new patterns annually.

Contact the writers through haonan@chinadaily.com.cn