From the handmade workshop roadside stalls, to the wholesale market after the front shop, to the spacious and bright international luggage trading center of hundreds of thousands of square meters, the Baigou luggage industry has climbed all the way through the ridge and iterated. At present, Baigou has formed a set of raw material supply, research and development design, production, sales, e-commerce, international trade and other forms of business in one of the regional characteristics of the industrial cluster, luggage production and sales of more than 30,000 market players, an annual output of 800 million bags, accounting for more than a quarter of the national output. According to incomplete statistics, the output value of white bags and bags exceeded 36 billion yuan in 2022.
Small bags tell of new challenges and new opportunities, and witness new achievements in the new era.
From the street stall to the "front room."
"Since childhood, I have followed my parents to make bags, and I am the second generation of 'luggage people'." Wang Jinlong, the founder of Pengjie Leather Goods Co., Ltd. was born in 1968. In his memory, when he was a child, his family was poor, and it was difficult to support a large family by farming. Every time, my parents bought bundles of fabric and sewed dozens of handbags. Every holiday, Wang Jinlong carries a pole to the county to sell. In those days, it was fashionable to have a handbag on the handle of a bicycle. Wang Jinlong said.
With the spring breeze of reform and opening up, Baigou farmers have started handbags, schoolbags, toys and other businesses. Baigou Street has become a lively market, full of bags and clothing, vendors come and go in an endless stream.
By the 1990s, Baigou had developed into a national well-known small commodity distribution center. At that time, it was called 'Little Hong Kong in the North', and buyers from all over the country came to Baigou to buy wholesale." Wang Jinlong also bought several sewing machines, and then bought three rooms and small courtyards to set up a luggage factory.
However, behind the prosperity of the market, there are also problems such as bullying, cutting corners, cheating and abducting. In this regard, Hebei Province and Baoding City carried out special rectification, cracked down on illegal acts, and built 20,000 square meters of luggage trading city, the majority of luggage manufacturers have a fixed "front room".
"The construction of a luggage trading city has standardized and improved the level of market management, screened high-quality businesses through the survival of the fittest, and promoted the development of the luggage manufacturing industry." Baigou New Town (in 2010, the former Baigou town and the former Baiyangdian hot spring City merged into Baigou New Town) deputy director of the management committee Jin Xuefei said.
Later, Baigou has successively built Baigou International Luggage trading City and Hedao International Luggage Trading Center to continuously improve the market environment. At present, Baigou has more than 10 professional markets, operating area of 4.5 million square meters, the annual turnover of more than 100 billion yuan.
Improve quality and upgrade to go abroad
With the improvement of consumption level, people's demand for brands is also increasing. It is urgent for Baigou to avoid the vicious competition of low prices and build its own brand.
In 2002, Baigou determined the development direction of "Baigou trade internationalization, Baigou product branding, Baigou enterprise park". We take advantage of the opportunity of transforming Baigou Luggage trading City and building Baigou International Luggage City to guide enterprises to register trademark brands, and those without trademarks are not allowed to rent shopping malls." Jin Xuefei said.
For a time, "Red Begonia" and "Three birds" and other luggage brands competed to appear. Baigou entrepreneurs often register trademarks with the names of their hometown or family members. For example, I took the names of my two sons to form the brand 'Pengjie'." "Using our family's name as a trademark is also a way to encourage us to make our own products and not to dishonor our reputation," Wang said.
In order to help enterprises build brands, Baigou regularly selects top ten brands according to product quality, sales and other indicators, and advertise at the door of the mall and on the wall of the corridor; Help enterprises apply for Hebei Province famous trademark, Hebei Province famous brand.
From the unlicensed label to the cultivation of independent brands, Baigou now produces and sells more than 2.5 million varieties of all categories of luggage, and tens of thousands of registered trademarks. Among them, there are 25 Madrid trademarks, 35 famous trademarks in Hebei Province and 11 famous brands in Hebei Province.
Around 2008, the domestic luggage market tends to be saturated, Baigou luggage enterprises began to target overseas market expansion. Zhang Wenjun, the founder of Bobo women's bag, just did foreign trade when he thought: Why is the same domestic women's bag, the price is one-third of foreign brands, but also compete with others?
She specially bought foreign high-end women's bags and their own products compared, found that there are gaps in quality and workmanship, especially the details are more obvious, it seems that low price competition will not work.
Therefore, Zhang Wenjun is not eager to expand foreign trade, but devote himself to developing new products: beautiful appearance, but also with fine and soft fabrics; Zipper pulling head with hardware accessories, high brightness, luster only show grade; Sewing work should also shorten the needle distance, one centimeter two stitches to one centimeter three stitches more fine...
After several years of polishing, Zhang Wenjun launched high-end women's bags, welcomed by the European and American markets.
Policy advantages have also boosted the white ditch bags out of the country. In recent years, the Baigou luggage market has been approved as a pilot market procurement trade method, so that many small and micro enterprises and merchants who do not have the right to import and export in the market can also enjoy the convenience of export and rapid customs clearance. In the first four months of this year, Baigou New City market procurement trade pilot exports amounted to 627 million US dollars, a growth rate of 751.57%.
Digitalization has spawned a new model of luggage sales
The transaction amount of the live broadcast room is 52,440 yuan, the number of transactions is 163 people, the viewing turnover rate is 1.17%, the average viewing time is 1 minute and 34 seconds, and the real-time user portrait is a 31-35 year-old female...... On June 27, walking into the selection room of Hebei Yungu Qizhi Technology Co., LTD., Li Chenyang, the relevant person in charge of the company, clicked the mouse, and the live data of a luggage flagship store appeared on the big screen.
"At present, we are selling 50,000 bags a day." Li Chenyang said that the secret of selling well is to view the real-time data of the broadcast room at any time through the digital enterprise resource management system, and automatically generate data information such as traffic analysis, anchor analysis, traffic diagnosis, and violations, accurately guide the sales strategy and adjust it in time, and then increase the sales amount.
"Bags are fast-selling products, and only by following the trend can we gain a place in the rapidly changing market." By establishing a big data information collection platform and linking it with the live streaming e-commerce platform, it can accurately capture market demand and create a sales boom." Baigou New City investment and characteristic industry bureau deputy director Hu Xin said.
Baigou New City has built a digital enterprise resource management system, which is shared with manufacturers and sales merchants. In the system, each bag product produced by the manufacturer has a digital ID card, and links to mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao. After the sales merchants enter the system, they can forward the product details to their own stores for sale with one click, and there will be no inventory troubles. The operational data is updated in real time, and the team of operational experts analyzes the data to provide guidance and advice to the selling merchants." All of this is based on real-time docking of data, which truly makes the whole process of luggage sales digitized." "Hu Xin said.
New technology brings new opportunities and new challenges. In 2022, Hebei formulated the "Work Plan for Promoting the High-quality Development of Baigou's Trade and Economy", built the Baigou Digital Empowerment Center, and accelerated the creation of a high-end talent incubation and innovation transformation base. In the same year, Baigou was approved as the country's first digital "three products" base.
"This year, Baigou will strengthen data empowerment, focus on the construction of digital Baigou system, comprehensively improve the level of industrial innovation, consolidate the digital foundation, and help enterprises transform and upgrade." Jin Xuefei said.
