Behind all the hot searches, there are grass snakes and gray lines that you didn’t expect.
This is a classic case of segmentation verticals switching tracks to storm various emerging players.
1
Back in 2019, I sent out a tweet suggesting that the hanbok market might be about to explode (Figure 1). Many people approved, and everyone agreed that price and capacity were the two major pain points in the current hanbok market. At that time, although hanboks were popular in the old-fashioned circles, the prices were high and the public was not very willing to spend money, and the capacity of several mainstream stores could not keep up, so buyers who were willing to spend money often had to wait for orders to be made. These reasons together prevented the large-scale popularity of Hanfu.
2
At that time, there were three major mainstream industrial clusters in the Chinese costume industry in China. They were Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.
This can be felt through the distribution of stores in Figure 2.
The reason is simple: Hangzhou is the capital of e-commerce, and the e-commerce industry is well developed, so naturally there will be big hanbok stores.
At the same time, Hangzhou is a gathering place for netizens, so big hanfu netizens like Xiaodoukou also appear in Hangzhou. Xiaodoukou is the owner of 13 Yu.
Guangzhou, on the other hand, has a developed manufacturing industry with strong production capacity. Many Hanfu merchants from other regions get their goods from here.
Chengdu, on the other hand, wins in the market, the netroots city, the capital of leisure, people are willing to spend, and there are more local hanbok clubs.
In short, the three major cities occupy the brand, manufacturing and market heights of the Hanfu industry.
3
But who would have guessed that a new player, under the water, has emerged.
This is Cao County, Shandong Province.
Cao County is not a first-tier city, nor is it a netroots capital, nor does it have the massive capital resources of a first-tier city.
So what makes them compete with the three major cities?
Because they have an industry that has been passed down for a hundred years.
It is the longevity industry.
Cao County has always produced coffins and birthday clothes, and they have monopolized more than 90% of the coffin market in Japan with their coffins.
At the same time, they also have a full set of life jacket industry.
As you may have guessed ~
The life jacket industry, the essence is still the clothing industry, design and layout sewing and processing, a full set of industry chain Cao County have ~ and also all inherited a hundred years of old crafts [sad]. If you really want to know more about traditional costumes, the Hanfu netizens in the north are not necessarily better than the old tailors in Cao County.
So, what remains is a question of changing the mindset
It was in March 2008 that Cao County opened its first online store.
But soon, local residents found out that there were many sellers of birthday suits, but the market for Chinese costumes was actually so strong.
So what not to sell, then switch to selling costumes.
So Cao County soon became the largest costume processing base in China, the costumes of Hengdian Film and Television City came from here, Hunan TV, Henan TV, Liaoning TV and other local TV stations Spring Festival Gala, the actors wore performance costumes, also from Cao County out. Even domestic studios of all sizes get their costumes from Cao County.
By 2019, there are already more than 16,000 online stores, more than 300 cat stores, and nearly 2,000 performance costume co. companies in Cao County, producing various performance costumes, ethnic costumes, festival costumes, photography props, and dance shoes.
Annual performance costume sales of more than 6 billion, accounting for 70% of the total sales of the industry’s e-commerce platform network [kneeling]
And having eaten the costume market, Cao County merchants, naturally, found that many users came to ask if they sold hanbok.
So, many merchants also began to transition to doing hanbok.
4
In Cao County, there is one word for making Hanfu: simple and brutal.
As I said at the beginning of the article, the pain points of hanfu are price and capacity.
The price of hanbok is generally 300-500 in several big online stores, and even the starting price of the Minghuadang set is more than 3,000 yuan, which is why in the early years hanbok was called the “three sisters of bankruptcy” along with JK and Lolita~.
But Cao County came, the price directly to a hundred cabbage price
And, Cao County’s thinking is, I don’t care what ancient method you don’t have, what shape you don’t have, what Song system, Ming system, Wei Jin style, all kinds of Hanfu circle rules I don’t even look at, I just have a cheap quantity.
You sell a thousand I sell a hundred, you want three weeks to order I have the spot, but also free shipping.
After years of experience in the costume industry, the merchants in Cao County always keep in mind the current situation that 600 million people in China earn less than 1000~ per month.
So, the next episode is the familiar, traditional Chinese show – the encirclement of the city by the countryside ~
The 2019 Hanfu Industry Report shows that the highest percentage of all Hanfu consumers, 41.78%, choose the $100-300 price point. And most of the hanboks at this price point come from Cao County [show hand].
At the end of 2019, the number of hanboks in Cao County has already surpassed that of Hangzhou Chengdu Guangzhou, or even the sum of the three ~ of course, at that time, people’s perception was not yet obvious, because the big head stores with high online voice and exposure were all still located in Hangzhou Chengdu Guangzhou, a few net red hanbok stores, but in fact, under the water, Cao County has long completed the rural encirclement of the city.
Simply put, the key to the explosion of the Hanfu industry in Cao County is that although people in the “Hanfu circle” subculture circle despise them for their cheap copycats and lack of form, they have quietly occupied the entire large Hanfu consumer market outside the Hanfu circle. They are cheap and convenient, and they satisfy many people’s childhood dream of having a fairy-like Hanfu while wearing a bed sheet. In a sense, they’ve hit the “young people’s first hanbok” pain point.
Of course, there were many problems, such as the copying of a large number of Chinese costumes in the early days of Cao County, which forced the owner of Hanshang Hualian to bring a group of lawyers to Cao County to file a lawsuit. The lawsuit ended with Hanshang Hualian’s victory, after which Cao County started to transform its original design and recruited a large number of design talents to do their own original design.
Many of the northern drifters in Cao County from north to south also started to return to their hometowns to make their own hanbok brands, and even talents with doctoral degrees came back to start researching intelligent assembly lines for hanbok.
In 2021, there will be more than 2,000 businesses in the Hanfu industry chain in Cao County, and more than 600 original Hanfu processing companies. Sales of original Hanfu already account for one-third of the national market.
What’s more, Cao County officials are aware of the industry and have begun to integrate the chain ~
Cao County’s vocational education secondary professional school has set up a live streaming room for hanbok merchants to live stream their goods and also train a new generation of hanbok merchants.
Even their female governor has personally opened a live stream of hanboks, selling over 3000 pieces in half an hour!
The governor, as you may have guessed, is the one who personally responded to Cao County’s hot searches these past two days, making many people lament how they reacted so quickly and knew how to spread the word, her name is Liang Huimin.
So ah, the world may have no reason to love, there may be no reason to hate, but will not be no reason to hot search again.
All the luck that you feel by chance often has a long ambush buried behind it.
At the same time, you may also understand, Cao County terrier why can fire up why can out of the circle, behind is actually a soil, Cao County because of the Hanfu industry, gathered a large number of northern drift back to the hometown employment of young people. And all young people who know how to live and understand the network.
Cao County is a case that is worth studying, he is one of the very few cases where a third-tier city has overtaken a first-tier city in terms of industry. All people who want to return to their hometowns to start their own businesses and cities that want to develop local industries, I think we can study this case of Cao County. You feel that the old old industries to be eliminated, convert the idea, may be the popular industry wind track seed player.
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