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Our reporters Guo Yangchen and Zhang Jiazhen reported from Shanghai

"The seamless hairpin that Huang Yuting wears has a wholesale price of 0.6 yuan. In the past four days, our family has sold more than 400,000 of them." On August 1, Tao Xin (pseudonym), who specializes in jewelry business at Yiwu International Trade City in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, told a reporter from China Business News.

On July 27, the Chinese team Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao won the mixed team 10m air rifle event at the Paris Olympics, which was the first gold medal for the Chinese Olympic delegation at this Olympics. The white hairpin Huang Yuting wore during the competition also became a hit during the Olympics.

The Chinese delegation is in the midst of winning gold medals at the Olympics, and Chinese products are also shining in Paris. According to statistics from the Paris Olympic Committee, 80% of the Olympic mascot "Friger" of this Olympics is made in China. In addition, 1 million official Olympic silicone bracelets with the words "PARIS 2024" printed on them are also made in China. Many of these "small commodities" come from Yiwu International Trade City, which is known as the "World Supermarket".

The reporter learned that Yiwu International Trade City has a total of seven major markets, with 75,000 business booths, operating 2.1 million kinds of goods in 26 categories, maintaining trade relations with 233 countries and regions around the world, and connecting 2.1 million enterprises and 32 million workers across the country.

In addition to the global sales of small commodities, the "Yiwu brand" is also accelerating its "going global". In September 2023, Yiwu City released the "Yiwu China Small Commodity City" brand overseas expansion plan to the world.Small Commodity City"With this largest city brand as a carrier, we will comprehensively build the brand system of "Yiwu China Commodity City" by exploring five major models: overseas sub-markets, overseas warehouses, overseas exhibition halls, overseas stations and overseas exhibitions.

"Yiwu has always been regarded as a weathervane for the development of my country's foreign trade market." He Jianhua, researcher and former vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, chief expert of the Jiangsu Provincial Decision-making Consulting Research Base, and dean of the Yangtze River Delta Modernization Research Institute of Nantong University, believes that from the World Cup, the European Cup to the Olympic Games, Yiwu has repeatedly seized business opportunities in major international sports events, formed a brand effect, opened up a vast market, and demonstrated China's development vitality. In the process of comprehensively deepening reform and expanding opening up, it is recommended that Yiwu take the lead in institutional opening up and become an institutional opening pioneer that connects with international high-standard economic and trade rules.

Olympic "heat wave" blows to Yiwu

For Yiwu merchants, every Olympic Games is a grand "hot-selling live broadcast room". At the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Yang Qian won China's first gold medal, and the little yellow duck hairpin she wore was also in short supply. Relevant statistics show that after Yang Qian won the championship, the number of little yellow duck hairpins issued from Yiwu City was at least 500,000 per day during the peak period, an average of 6 per second.

This was also the first time that Tao Xin felt the "heat wave" brought by the Olympics. "In the summer of that year (2021), due to the shortage of raw materials, the little yellow duck hairpins sold about 400,000. After the 'training' of the Tokyo Olympics, I prepared enough raw materials such as base glue and fabrics in advance before the opening of the Paris Olympics this year, hoping that the sales volume can exceed one million." Tao Xin said.

"As soon as the news of Huang Yuting's victory at the Paris Olympics came out, the white hairpin she wore really became a hit. Our factory started working overtime at 2 or 3 in the morning that night, and the first batch of goods, more than 100,000 in total, were sold out on the same day." Tao Xin told reporters that at present, most of the hairpin-making factories in Yiwu are producing the same hairpins that Huang Yuting wore, and everyone is rushing to buy raw materials such as base glue. Even if customers make reservations two days in advance, the factory needs to rush to work overnight to deliver on time.

In fact, the heat wave of the Paris Olympics had already reached Yiwu before the opening ceremony. The reporter learned that this Paris Olympics is full of fashion, and the competition venues are dominated by purple. Yiwu merchants have also captured this business opportunity early.

"In May, we designed a purple football with the purple runway of the Stade de France pattern on the outside. 20,000 units were sold in just one month after the product was put on the shelves, making it a new hot item in the store. Recently, many customers have placed expedited orders and had it airlifted to Paris," said Chen Shaomei, a sporting goods merchant in District 3 of Yiwu International Trade City.

Xu Qingkuan, the head of Yiwu Yongjie Hardware Co., Ltd., which is engaged in the trade of tourism products, also dressed his own products such as key chains and refrigerator magnets in "purple". According to Xu Qingkuan, the company mainly exports key chains, refrigerator magnets and related tourism product ornaments with the Eiffel Tower, a landmark of Paris, to France. In the past, they were mainly bronze in color, but this time they also opened a "purple storm" for the Paris Olympics.

"This purple keychain is sold for about 5 euros in some scenic spots in Paris." Xu Qingkuan said that currently more than 1,000 items are sold per month. A few days ago, he saw a video on the Internet showing that Chinese tourists bought their own "Paris Purple" series products while shopping in Paris.

Driven by major events such as the Paris Olympics, Yiwu, known as the "World Small Commodity Capital", has seen a significant increase in export data. According to the latest statistics released by Yiwu on July 24, in the first half of this year, the total import and export value of Yiwu exceeded 300 billion yuan for the first time. Among them, the export of sports goods and equipment was 5.02 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 42.3%.

“Yiwu knows everything that happens in the world. By observing the dynamics of the small commodity market, we can predict the ups and downs of the world economy.” In He Jianhua’s opinion, this is mainly because Yiwu has three major advantages: first, the market is large, relying on small commodities to connect to the world and gain high global recognition; second, it has extensive international connections, especially in Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and other regions where it has a strong market network; third, it is closely connected with the international market and has a very high sensitivity to the pulse of the market.

Product innovation breaks through the constraints of homogeneity

This summer, the European Cup and the America's Cup just ended, and the Paris Olympics opened grandly. The successive major events also brought a large number of event orders from all over the world.

In March this year, Wu Xiaoming, who has been in Yiwu for more than 30 years and specializes in football souvenirs, received the largest order of the year: more than 80,000 footballs. The order was successfully delivered in April and sent to France, Spain, Germany and other countries, and sold well during the European Cup in Germany.

Wu Xiaoming has his own football brand and production factory. The products are mainly mid-to-high-end series, with an average daily output of about 5,000 and an annual output of about 180,000. "The wholesale price of our footballs ranges from a dozen yuan to several dozen yuan. After customers receive the goods, the retail price can reach 4-5 times, and the profit is very considerable. Therefore, orders are endless, and the entire year's production was sold out in April." Wu Xiaoming said.

Wu Xiaoming told reporters that in general, sports goods will be hot in the years with major competitions. For example, football products were sold out during the 2022 World Cup. The afterglow of the World Cup has not yet dissipated, and this year has ushered in the three major events of the European Cup, the America's Cup and the Paris Olympics, and also ushered in a new round of order peaks.

"In comparison, low-end products are more affected by the cyclical nature of major competitions. Due to fierce competition this year, the low-end market is still in overall oversupply, which necessitates a 'price war'. However, mid-to-high-end products will not have overcapacity even in ordinary years because there are fewer competitors," said Wu Xiaoming.

This is also the main reason why Wu Xiaoming chose to open his own factory and create his own brand.

Wen Congjian, who runs a jersey business in Yiwu International Trade City, has similar experiences and ideas. In 2008, the epoch-making popularity of the Beijing Olympics made Wen Congjian earn his first pot of gold. Later, he found that the problem of homogeneous competition in the jersey market was becoming more and more serious, and independent innovation had become a "must-answer question".

"We have broken away from the traditional business model and invested a lot of effort in product research and development to develop a series of original products. We also applied for copyright patents and ultimately became unique in the market. This means that only my family has this piece of clothing, and no one else has it," Wen Congjian explained.

Wen Congjian told reporters that this year's three major sports events have made his jerseys popular overseas, covering nearly 60 countries and regions, and the company's turnover has also increased by about 30% year-on-year. "In order to seize the opportunity and ship quickly, I pay attention to the games every day. Every game may affect the sales trend of jerseys. In the first round of the European Cup group stage, Romania's "unexpected" victory over Ukraine, and the Romanian jerseys suddenly became "hot in sales."

At the same time, more and more foreign merchants come to Yiwu to purchase. "Recently, during a survey of Yiwu Small Commodity Market, I found that the passages were crowded with people, merchants spoke English, Russian, Spanish and Arabic, and went back and forth between the stalls to negotiate business. Merchants were busy introducing products to customers and leaving contact information with each other." He Jianhua said that this year there are obviously more foreigners in Yiwu, and no one will return empty-handed. The market is still as popular and active as ever.

Statistics from the Yiwu Exit and Entry Administration show that by the end of the first quarter of this year, the number of foreign businessmen in Yiwu had reached 21,000. Data previously released by Yiwu International Trade City also showed that since 2024, the average daily passenger flow of the trade city has exceeded 210,000, and the average daily foreign passenger flow has exceeded 3,500, an increase of 160.2% year-on-year.

It is worth mentioning that Yiwu also held an international sports and leisure products expo and outdoor products exhibition in June 2024. Statistics show that the exhibition attracted 51,000 professional buyers in three days, an increase of 87% year-on-year, including 603 overseas merchants; the exhibition turnover reached 170 million yuan, an increase of 70% year-on-year.

From exporting goods to exporting brands

Today, Yiwu is no longer satisfied with simply exporting goods, but is trying to make Yiwu brands go further abroad.

On September 5, 2023, at the first "Market Opening Anniversary", Yiwu City officially released the "Yiwu China Commodity City" brand overseas expansion plan to the world. Through brand planning, image design, model output, operation management and other means, Yiwu market merchants, commodities and supply chain services will be systematically, scaled and branded "going overseas".

Chinagoods, known as the "Online Yiwu Small Commodity City", is the "face" of Yiwu's brands going global. According to relevant persons in charge of Yiwu Mall Group, the operator of Yiwu International Trade City, Chinagoods was officially launched in October 2020. The cumulative number of uploaded products has exceeded 10 million, with more than 4.09 million registered buyers. The online trade volume served in 2023 will exceed 65 billion yuan, and the international trade comprehensive service system of "digitalization of traditional markets + digitalization of trade fulfillment" has been initially formed.

"Chinagoods is equivalent to moving the entire Yiwu International Trade City to the Internet. Basically every merchant will participate. Foreign customers can browse the merchants' products and information on this platform, and then contact the merchants directly. This further reduces the communication costs between our merchants and foreign businessmen." Wu Xiaoming said.

The relevant person in charge of the above-mentioned mall group further stated that since 2023, Chinagoods has launched a series of "Brand Overseas Season" activities, and various industries' top products procurement and negotiation special sessions, various overseas exhibitions, and market top products vertical exhibitions have been held one after another, becoming the most direct bridge connecting domestic small commodities and many international buyers. At the same time, Chinagoods has established the Yiwu Brand Overseas Alliance 10 Billion Club Organization, advocating that everyone highly synchronize resources, traffic and overseas strategies to form a joint force to compete overseas, and provide the entire Yiwu market with a "replicable" template for brand overseas.

In April 2024, Chinagoods' first offline store officially started trial operation in Kariakoo Market in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The store is operated in an offline store membership model, radiating the entire East African market with Tanzania as the center.

"This is equivalent to moving Yiwu International Trade City overseas, breaking through the limitations of time and space, and allowing African buyers to purchase products at their doorstep without having to come to Yiwu. In the future, the 2.1 million kinds of goods available in Yiwu market will gradually appear in Kariakoo market, making it convenient for local merchants to purchase directly from overseas." A relevant person in charge of the mall group explained.

According to reports, Chinagoods will continue to expand its offline business model to better serve 75,000 market merchants and global buyers. At the same time, with state-owned enterprises taking the lead, integrating resources and investing funds, it invites qualified Yiwu resource parties (market operators, foreign trade companies, etc.) and overseas resource parties (local traders, channel providers, platform providers, etc.) to form joint ventures to directly enter overseas markets, allowing Yiwu companies to easily expand their business globally.

Li Wei (pseudonym) is the head of a cross-border e-commerce company in Yiwu. In his opinion, Yiwu's foreign trade has been able to grow further in recent years. In addition to the good local business environment and the high demand for small commodities as rigid necessities, Yiwu has also seized the "trend" of the growth of the cross-border e-commerce market. More and more cross-border e-commerce sellers are gathering in Yiwu, and Yiwu can provide strong product support and logistics guarantees.

"In recent years, the small commodity market has changed a lot. Online shopping, e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce, overseas warehouse models andAlibaba、Pinduoduo、MeituanThe rise of Internet platforms such as the Internet is also forcing the transformation and upgrading of sales channels on the manufacturing side. "He Jianhua believes that Yiwu, as the "World Small Commodity Capital", is in fact a large-scale online and offline economic and trade trading platform, and should achieve coordinated and balanced development of the manufacturing, sales and consumer ends. At the same time, it is necessary to timely track and grasp the signals of global industrial changes and changes in mass consumption, develop strategic emerging industries, lay out future industries, and optimize and solidify the industrial foundation that supports the sustainable development of Yiwu.