![The truth behind the popularity of Cao County Hanfu](/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/gohanfugirl.webp)
The anchor promoted Hanfu live at Youaiyuncang Hanfu Base in Cao County, Heze City, Shandong Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Xulei
"The supply of horse-faced skirts in Caoxian County exceeds demand", "College students return to Caoxian County to sell Hanfu", "Caoxian Hanfu goes global"... Caoxian Hanfu has continued to attract attention for some time.
The reporter recently came to Cao County, Heze City, Shandong Province, and had in-depth exchanges with cadres, entrepreneurs, young people who have returned to their hometowns to start businesses, and farmers here, and gained a new understanding of the reasons for the Hanfu traffic blowout.
Open the door to e-commerce
Walking into Daji Town, Cao County, there are few vacant houses on both sides of the road. Shops selling fabrics, clothing pattern making, tailoring and sewing, digital printing, express logistics, etc. are densely packed and stretch for several kilometers. Thanks to more than ten years of development of the performance costume industry, Cao County has formed a sophisticated and complete market division of labor with small and medium-sized enterprises as units.
"Cao County has a permanent population of more than 1.35 million. It is one of the most populous counties in Shandong. It was once the largest county in Shandong's labor export. More than ten years ago, villagers went around selling studio clothes, performance clothes, etc. they produced. Although there are certain sales, but the market share was not high. Until the door of e-commerce was opened inadvertently, the clothing industry rose rapidly," said Sun Xueping, secretary of the Party branch of Sunzhuang Village, Daji Town.
On rural walls, slogans such as "Open an online store and sell it all over the world, and make e-commerce clothing rich for thousands of families" have replaced the old slogans of "If you don't love your hometown, you can make a lot of money by going out to work" and "If one person goes out to work, the whole family can escape poverty and become rich." Under the influence of e-commerce, clothing sales in Caoxian County have undergone turning changes. Not only has it built a complete industrial chain for clothing processing, it has also rapidly occupied 40% of the domestic Hanfu market in recent years. According to statistics, the total sales of Hanfu in Caoxian County will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2023. Since this year, the online sales of Hanfu have reached 1.98 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90.8%.
Attracting returnees to start businesses
"If industries are concentrated in towns and villages, Caoxian Hanfu has the advantages of low cost and fast shipment; the return of young people has quickly strengthened sales, design, operations and other links, boosting branding and quality development." Start a business together with Youai Li Zilei, the head of the base, who returned from studying abroad, said that here, there are more than 300 anchors, operators and other personnel involved in joint ventures.The exhibition, logistics, design center and nearly a hundred live broadcast rooms have also introduced the Kaos intelligent manufacturing Hanfu production line to promote the high-quality development of the Hanfu industry with data and technology.
Huang Xiaoyan, born in 1985, has worked hard in the south for more than ten years, and now she is the manager of Caoxian Travel Datang Hanfu Yuncang. "Although I work in a township, I am close to the market and the pace is very fast. There is an endless stream of customers every day." She introduced while walking in the exhibition hall that the company's independently designed Hanfu covers Tang, Song, Ming, Qing and other categories, and is based on people's daily attire. Features are improved. Here, not only can you customize clothing personally, but there is also AI live broadcast to improve the online consumption experience.
More and more highly educated people consider returning home to start a business and find employment as their first choice. At present, there are three highly educated talents engaged in e-commerce in Cao County, including 3 Ph.D.s, nearly 100 masters, and nearly 10,000 college students. In recent years, Cao County has attracted a total of 50,000 people to return home to start businesses, and driven 350,000 people to engage in the e-commerce industry.
Improving the business environment
The "landing office" to ensure the implementation of key project construction, the "e-commerce office" to guide the development of the e-commerce industry, and the "business-to-business office" to improve the business environment... In response to the rapid development of the e-commerce economy, Cao County has innovatively launched in recent years A number of new institutions and new mechanisms have been established to open up a "green channel" for industrial development. In addition, Caoxian County has also planned and constructed the e-clothing town, Caoxian Digital Economy Industrial Park, a rural e-commerce industry demonstration area centered on Daji Town, and the e-clothing capital, China (Cao County) Huafu Intelligent Innovation City, Cao County E-commerce " The high-quality development pattern of "one park", "one district" and "one city" is accelerating.
Hu Chunqing, president of the Cao County Hanfu Association, said that in order to avoid homogeneous competition, Cao County established the Hanfu Association to help Hanfu manufacturing companies establish cooperation mechanisms with design institutions, colleges and universities, etc., and encourage companies to create their own brands; in order to protect independent innovation, Cao County established a special The Intellectual Property Rapid Rights Protection Center has shortened the patent application processing time from the traditional 180 days to 10 days.
“Our goal in creating a business environment is to do things without asking for help, have a predictable future, be convenient and efficient,” said Zhao Fulong, Secretary of the Cao County Party Committee. Today, the private economy in Caoxian County is full of vitality, with 155,000 business entities. Based on the permanent population, there is one business entity for every 10 people, and one enterprise for every 30 people. There are an overwhelming number of small and medium-sized enterprises.