'China's Swimsuits Capital' benefits from internet plus strategy

Boxes of swimsuits sold online at a logistics warehouse in Binhai Economic Zone in Huludao city, Northeast China‘s Liaoning province, on Oct 20, 2016. [Photo by Yao Yao/ chinadaily.com.cn]

A coastal city in Northeast China's Liaoning province is happy to see that the swimsuits it produced took up 40 percent of the domestic market share and 20 percent of the overseas market share. The big market share was not possible without internet plus strategy.

Huludao, also called China's Swimsuits Capital, produces 180 million swimsuits annually with 60,000 employees in the city. And the swimsuits are sold in more than 140 countries and regions, including Russia, the US and South Korea.

"In 2015, Xingcheng swimsuits industry cluster made a sales revenue of 12.61 billion yuan ($1.87 billion), and the export sales took up nearly $80 million," said Liu Xiaojun, vice-mayor of Xingcheng city, a prefecture-level city in Huludao city.

"Nowadays, the swimsuits industry in Huludao is using the opportunity brought by internet to seize its place in global market, which can be seen in the fact that local companies decided to set up logistics warehouse in foreign countries on the basis of big data analysis," said Li Haifeng, president of the Xincheng Swimsuit Industry Association.

Li said that Tiancheng Swimming Industry Service Co Ltd in Huludao city has built some overseas O2O experience centers in the cities including Los Angeles and Madrid, and also logistics warehouses, which not only sell the swimsuits produced in Huludao city to other countries, but also import some quality swimsuits from foreign countries to improve domestic swimsuits production.

Another example is the first e-commerce swimsuits seller I'M XIAOTAO (in Chinese: Xiao Tao Yong Yi) in Xingcheng city. I'M XIAOTAO, established in 2003, has been the swimsuits sales champion from 2009 to 2015 on the basis of the data from Taobao.

Besides swimsuits, the original farm produce can also be sold out to enrich local farmers' income through cuntao, a rural e-commerce platform launched by e-commerce giant Alibaba.

On Oct 12, 2015, Xincheng city agreed to develop cuntao with Alibaba. Thanks to cuntao, "locally planted peanuts, a geographical indication product of China with an almost zero aflatoxin, can be sold on the Taobao," said Liu Xiaojun.

Apart from increasing rural residents' income, cuntao also helps improve locals' life quality, since nowadays they can buy the things which are not easy for them to buy due to a long distance and inconvenient traffic in the past, said Liu.

Facing the booming e-commerce development in Huludao city, Liu said local government are thinking about how to let the swimsuits industry influence the development of local tourism and cultural industry.