The business has grown from 0 to 50 million! Anping wire mesh has a new vitality in going overseas

Silk screen is a bright business card of Anping County, Hengshui City, Hebei Province.

From daily guardrails and gabions to hardware, mining, petrochemical, and air purification equipment filters, to 3200-mesh stainless steel dense mesh widely used in cutting-edge fields such as aerospace and national defense, Anping wire mesh products can be divided into more than 400 varieties and more than 6,000 specifications.

Relying on the pillar industry of wire mesh, Anping has become the "China Wire Mesh Capital" with an output value exceeding 80 billion yuan and won the honorary title of Hebei Province's Smart Industry Cluster.

As the global wire mesh market demand opens up, Anping Wire Mesh has successfully expanded its business through Alibaba International Station and other means, and its products are exported to more than 190 countries and regions around the world. Anping Wire Mesh has also advanced from "the largest in China" to "the world's largest wire mesh production and sales base."

This climb to the top is inseparable from the efforts of many wire mesh industrial and trade merchants!

Actively going overseas has not only brought new profit growth points to the company, but also made traditional wire mesh continue to burst with vigorous vitality . Today, the editor will bring you the overseas stories of two wire mesh companies, hoping to bring some new inspiration to you who are looking for vast overseas business opportunities.

Conquer overseas markets, from 0 to 50 million

In 2011, Zhang Guolu registered and established Hebei Bochao Metal Wire Mesh Factory and started his entrepreneurial journey. At the beginning, he mainly produced simple products such as guardrail nets. After some exploration, he transformed into a manufacturer specializing in the production of greenhouse seedling facilities. Now, the annual sales of Bochao's tidal irrigation system series products are increasing at a rate of more than 150%. The sales in 2020 and 2021 were more than 80 million yuan and 120 million yuan respectively, which is a remarkable achievement!

Seedbeds are important facilities for greenhouse construction. Related industries involve seedling cultivation, flowers, medicinal materials and many other fields. It is a sunrise industry with development potential. In addition to the domestic market, the development prospects of the foreign market are also considerable. In 2015, Zhang Guolu established Hebei Chenchao Metal Wire Mesh Co., Ltd. and set up a foreign trade department in Shijiazhuang, mainly engaged in the export of greenhouse seedbeds abroad. Soon after, he joined Alibaba International Station.

"After entering a new market, it takes time to develop products. International sales in the first two years were basically supported by domestic sales profits. After unremitting efforts, including continuous product research and development, innovation, and chatting with customers to understand their needs, the company's product sales and profits began to increase year by year." Zhang Guolu said that the company's current export volume has reached 50 million yuan, and its products are exported to many countries and regions such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Singapore. The customer repurchase rate is very high, and there are more than 40 regular customers for more than 5 years.

Most companies started out by imitating others in the early days, and then established their own "moat" through independent innovation and brand building. Zhang Guolu is no exception.

While working in the wire mesh industry, Zhang Guolu gradually felt that the wire mesh industry tended to produce low value-added products and had low initiative, which was the same dilemma faced by the company . "In the process of development, the company had no flagship products and no products with independent intellectual property rights. It was almost like OEM and had no core competitiveness of its own. "

Zhang Guolu believes that companies must innovate if they want to develop in the long run . To this end, he has increased investment in high-standard production equipment, set high standards for the sales system, and will open an operations center in Shanghai. With high-end products as the direction, he will provide a full set of greenhouse cultivation solutions to better serve the international market.

"In addition to product quality, company size and sales capabilities, foreign trade also has certain requirements for product technical barriers, after-sales service, and corporate reputation. In line with the high standards of overseas markets, the company's own requirements will also be improved." Zhang Guolu believes that the transformation from Made in China to Smart Manufacturing in China is the inevitable direction for companies to transform. Overall, Chinese companies have great advantages in product prices, delivery cycles, after-sales services, etc. If Chinese companies dig deep into a certain niche field, their products will rise rapidly in a short period of time.

Rising from the ordinary, growing into a national-level specialized and innovative small giant enterprise

Different from Zhang Guolu’s identity as a “first generation entrepreneur”, Lu Qianli, born in the 1990s, is a “second generation entrepreneur”. He innovates and seeks change while inheriting the past, and he has written a new story for the development of Jinbiao.

In 1990, Zhang Naling and her husband started their business, engaging in mechanical processing and medical equipment parts processing. In 1995, the couple got involved in wire mesh products. Since they did not have their own factory, they built a simple carport in their yard for production. Growing up in the ordinary, after more than 30 years of development, Jinbiao has grown from two people at the beginning to a leading enterprise in Anping, and was awarded the only national-level specialized and innovative small giant enterprise in Hengshui. Now, Jinbiao mainly produces sound barriers, guardrail nets, geogrids, photovoltaic brackets and other products, forming a circular industrial chain in the fields of technical strength, production technology, and production capacity.

As a native of Anping, Lu Qianli was familiar with screens from an early age, and he spent most of his summer and winter vacations living in the company's factory since junior high school. After graduation, he naturally joined Jinbiao and continued the habit of living in the factory so that he could handle business and production issues at any time.

The collision between the old and the new has brought new ideas and concepts to the company and promoted its development.

Before 2012, all of Jinbiao's products were derived from the domestic high-speed rail and expressway fields. After Lu Qianli came to the company, he actively developed a foreign trade team and broadened the product range, which undoubtedly increased the company's competitiveness.

Now, the sales proportion of Jinbiao in overseas markets has reached 30%, of which nearly 80% of the orders come from Alibaba International Station.

"The foreign trade department has always been a strategic department of the company. The opportunities in the international market are very great. The expansion of overseas markets can achieve product interaction and improve production quality and process technology. " Lu Qianli said that his positioning of the factory business is to break out of Anping and not use Anping manufacturers as a benchmark, otherwise the vision and pattern will become limited; the requirement for the foreign trade department is also not to regard themselves as manufacturers, which will give others the illusion that the company only has an advantage of high cost performance. But in fact, innovation and R&D are equally important in the sales process. Treating the factory as a supporting facility and determining the product rhythm in line with the development of the company will bring better results.

There are many excellent "going overseas" companies such as Chenchao and Jinbiao .

Anping County has more than 20,000 wire mesh industry and trade enterprises , of which more than 600 are international merchants. Many companies that have sensed overseas business opportunities, based on Anping wire mesh, have actively sought to make differentiated and deep-rooted layouts with the advantages brought by product quality and brand premium, and are placing orders overseas in full swing.