Fujian manufacturers collectively go overseas: discovering a new blue ocean for brand overseas expansion on cross-border e-commerce SHEIN

Fujian, which has experienced more than 40 years of industrial development and is well-known both at home and abroad as the "World Shoe and Clothing Factory", is now experiencing many new developments: local shoe and clothing factories are competing to add value, accelerating the improvement of upstream and downstream supply chain supporting facilities, and further extending their capabilities to independent research and development of new technological fabrics and even brand building, constantly improving their value as a "World Shoe and Clothing Factory".

The secret lies in "cross-border e-commerce". Since the beginning of the year, the Fujian government has frequently proposed the development of the "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt" model, encouraging cross-border e-commerce platforms to conduct docking with Fujian's characteristic industrial belts such as textiles, footwear, sports equipment, and new energy, and accelerate the cultivation of "Fujian products" overseas brands, so that local companies can take advantage of the convenience of the east wind. The media also found that as a leading cross-border e-commerce platform going overseas, SHEIN's official investment promotion meetings and professional teams are frequently going deep into the industrial belts of major cities such as Fuzhou, Quanzhou, and Jinjiang, like igniting a spark, helping to accelerate the local companies' "cross-border" momentum. According to people familiar with the matter, as of now, thousands of Fujian companies have entered the overseas retail market through the platform resources provided by the cross-border e-commerce SHEIN, and are moving towards becoming an "international trend brand" that is popular among international consumers.

There are new faces in overseas markets: Fujian manufacturers build brands to go global

Once upon a time, "suffering from international brands for a long time" became the focus of discussion among Fujian bosses whenever they sat together. Although they had excellent equipment and productivity, local manufacturers lacked brand power and found it difficult to continue to gain traffic and sales. The products produced by Fujian factories were of good quality, but there was still a gap in technology, design and performance with similar foreign brands. For a long time, international brands even dominated the growth of China's footwear and clothing consumption market.

"Although the quality may be similar, if the brand cannot get off the ground, it will inevitably fall into the dilemma of homogeneity. Once the products are homogenized, price competition will be triggered in order to compete for market share, especially in the same industrial belt, which will in turn hurt the profits of other manufacturers. Therefore, our company also hopes to enhance product awareness and expand new customer base through differentiated business strategies, such as cross-border e-commerce and branding, for long-term value investment." During the interview, the director of a shoe factory who has been running a shoe factory in Putian for a long time expressed this view.

Industry insiders pointed out that for most of the existing local Fujian companies, brand overseas expansion is still in the stage of popularizing concepts and trial expansion. It reflects the desire of many manufacturers for high-quality overseas exports, which actually constitutes a good opportunity for domestic factories to transform and upgrade driven by the demand of the international retail market.

So, how can Fujian sellers outperform other peers and gain an advantage in the new season of international competition? First, they need to clearly answer two questions:

How to reach overseas target consumer groups?

How to build a set of capabilities to win the hearts of consumers?

SHEIN's platform model, which started from operating its own brand and continued to deepen and expand, has brought new possibilities to manufacturers. It has the ability to defend the title of the global shopping APP download list for two consecutive years, and has a high-quality young fashion customer base of up to 100 million and still growing overseas. It has also created an independent brand that is one of the world's four major fashion brands. If the SHEIN platform "leads the way", Fujian sellers will naturally go out quickly and accurately. The media learned that since SHEIN opened its platform model, it has successively launched a variety of cooperation models such as independent operation, agency operation empowerment, and semi-trusteeship. It not only uses its own successful experience and resource advantages to help third-party sellers quickly start overseas sales, but also helps sellers cultivate overseas "fan groups" and achieve a leap to digitalization, lean production, and even the development of their own brands. The media searched on the SHEIN website and found that many well -known shoe and clothing brands have entered the SHEIN platform to carry out sales activities.

The SHEIN platform also provides merchants with product development guidance and operational support. Many factory owners have taken two key steps:

The first step is to improve product quality and reduce waste by learning SHEIN's "small order, fast response" methodology, on-demand production, and lean production. The start and stop of the production line will incur hundreds or thousands of yuan in costs, so it is best to ensure that the production line is as consistent as possible and the products are popular. However, due to the inability to directly grasp the dynamic situation of demand in different overseas markets, this has easily led to conflicts between domestic production and overseas demand in the past. The product development forecasts and guidance provided by the SHEIN platform, as well as the flexible supply chain model of testing first and then adjusting production capacity, can help merchants greatly reduce conflicts.

The second step is to cultivate or polish the brand as a golden signboard.

As a native of Jinjiang, Huang Rui decided to step out of the role of a simple factory manager in early 2024 and develop his own men's clothing brand with the European market as the first stop. As a factory owner and future brand founder, Huang Rui has always adhered to the principle that "to run a business, you must make progress, and not making progress is regressing." Product quality must be able to pass the strict review of acceptance personnel and the packaging department, and basic problems such as messy threads and improper packaging must be actively avoided during the production process. At the same time, the factory has iterated and improved even the basic packaging bags four to five times, and each product must be ensured to be flat and flawless before leaving the factory.

The rising sales of the store proves the effect of improving quality. The SHEIN platform also continuously guides Huang Rui's team to optimize the visuals of the store and products . Less than a month after entering the store, the team created a hot product. Huang Rui re-colored the product three times based on the feedback from the platform, and the sales became more and more popular. Therefore, he simply set the store growth target for 2025 at an average daily sales of more than 10,000 orders.

SHEIN supports innovation in all aspects, and domestic brands are upgrading their overseas business

Opening the comment section of a SHEIN store, you can see consumers of various languages ​​and skin colors excitedly sharing their experiences wearing SHEIN products while vacationing at the beach, hiking or cycling outdoors, enjoying good weather or camping. In this win-win cross-border trade, they are happy shoppers, enjoying the wonderful life brought by products from all over the world - this gives Fujian bosses more motivation to persist in making good products.

"SHEIN is the first cross-border platform we chose. We may set up independent websites and other businesses in the future, but we chose it as our first stop," Qin Yuxiang said. He had heard about SHEIN's company situation before. In Quanzhou, where his company is located, many peers quickly inquired about how to open stores after SHEIN opened its platform business. He was not one of the first to get on board.

For him, in the past, developing overseas markets from 0 to 1 often meant high cost investment, professional differentiated operations and complex cultural adaptation. But now, with the help of the SHEIN platform, he can change the traditional path of "learning operations first, then selling goods". While creating high sales performance, he can gradually establish brand awareness, let international buyers become a part of word-of-mouth communication, and start the business in multiple overseas markets at the same time.

Moreover, they cannot just follow international brands, but must also "run side by side" or even "lead". Qin Yuxiang believes that they need to "go one step further" and strengthen their innovation capabilities for different markets. He told the media: "Our products have a strong penetration rate in the Chinese market, and we have long-term cooperation with many events and professional teams. We have more than 700 offline agents, but our understanding of overseas markets is not enough. However, SHEIN has already made arrangements in advance for the overseas markets we value, including countries such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East in addition to Europe and the United States. SHEIN has deep insights into local consumers and fashion trends in these countries, and with our good products, we can run faster."

The platform and sellers have established a steady growth cooperation channel. Qin Yuxiang is still discussing innovation with SHEIN employees and developing more targeted products. For example, the demand for sunscreen products in the Japanese and Korean markets is high in summer, which is a period of rapid growth for sunscreen shirts, hats, and sunscreen masks. The climate in Southeast Asia is hotter and sweating is easy, so quick-drying fabrics are more important... He then gives these specific market demands to the planning team, and constantly enriches the pallets for different countries. At present, the company has entered the sales period of autumn and winter outdoor clothing. The independently developed three-dimensional tailoring and special warm fabrics provide new product functions that effectively lock in temperature, and can provide consumers with all-round protection even in windy, snowy and cold weather.

Qin Yuxiang also revealed that his SHEIN store has achieved its annual expectations after more than half a year of operation, and is planning to increase investment in advance, such as making some off-site investments and having international influencers bring products to bring sales to new heights.

It is revealed that there are currently thousands of Fujian factories on the SHEIN platform, and many sellers can already match some international brands in terms of sales. Among them, many sellers expressed their willingness to work hard on cross-border brand building, boost sales in the short term, and take advantage of overseas peak seasons such as Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, the start of school, and the Christmas season; in the medium and long term, cultivate consumer trust and brand value shaping, highlight the excellence of Fujian manufacturing in production skills, and also show the charm of the growth narrative of Chinese brands to the international market. Benefiting from the strong annual compound growth rate of the global outdoor products market, the Fujian version of the story of "cross-border wealth" and "cross-border brands" will continue to be staged.

SHEIN

Fujian Manufacturers

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