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Entrepreneur hopes for bright future in online trade
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HOW well is the Chinese economy doing? As many people talk about slower growth, does it mean there are fewer business opportunities in China?
I’m not in a position to give a general picture, so I will share some of my thoughts about doing business based on my own entrepreneurial experience.
This is my 11th year in the fur business. Fur is a niche product, but the fur business is still big. My estimate is that around two million mink coats (made of farmed mink skins, mainly from Europe, North America and China) were sold in China last year, tallying 30 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) in retail turnover. This does not include garments of other fur types, like rex rabbit and fur accessories.
Northern China remains the main markets for fur, and Harbin city is known in the industry as the World’s Fur Capital — every year around 200,000 mink coats go into Harbin wardrobes to offer warmth against extreme cold. Also, tradition has it that fur is a must for the bride in a wedding ceremony in many regions of northern China.
However, fur is not just something northerly; the geographical expansion of fur consumption in China has been one of the ultimate driving forces that keep my former employer, Kopenhagen Fur, growing. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, it is the world’s largest fur skin auction house, and over the years more and more of its mink skins have been snatched up by Chinese manufacturers.
In my two stints with Kopenhagen Fur from 2005 to early this year, first as general manager of its China office and later as head of its consulting subsidiary in China, I’ve been to many cities to try to uncover and unleash fur demand by working with local fur shops. From Shanghai to Urumqi, and from Hohhot to Wuhan, there’s a sizable and growing fur market.
The Chinese fur industry grew rapidly from 2000 to 2013, riding on the robust growth of the domestic economy. But like many other industries, it’s been plunged into the throes of over-capacity and cutthroat competition since 2013.
Consumers still want fur, but they also want different furs and better services. After the good old days when money came easy, the industry must catch up with ever more sophisticated consumers. And that’s where our new platform aims to come in. By bringing 20 credible fur brands onto our platform in the first year, we are setting out to provide trendy fur products that are up to date with the consumers’ life style — not just fur coats, but also fur accessories, fur furniture as well as fur combined with other fabrics like cashmere and silk — at reasonable prices. This last category — fur combined with cashmere and silk — will likely grow over time.
Hitches and glitches are foreseeable, like the high rate of returned goods that hounds online shopping platforms in China. But as far as I can see, one indispensable and key way for the fur industry and the Chinese economy to re-gain vitality is to tap the potentials of the Internet to re-organize the ways of doing things and better cater to the needs of the consumers. And that’s more than just skin-deep knowledge.
(The author is CEO of a new Internet startup called 10fur.com)
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