On September 26, the 6th Baigou·China (International) Luggage and Clothing Festival was held in Baigou, Hebei, with the theme of "Harmony, Innovation and Development". Since then, Baigou Town, Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province has been officially awarded the title of "China's Luggage Capital" by the Leather Goods Professional Committee of the China Leather Association. This title was decided after the town applied for it in 2004 and after three years of work by an expert assessment team from relevant national departments.
Compared to big cities like Guangzhou and Beijing, this is a very small town, and you may not be able to find it on the administrative map of China. In this small place known as the "Northern Shopping Paradise", in terms of bags of the same brand, model and quality: for the price of one big brand bag in a large or medium-sized city, you can buy two here; For the price reported by a medium brand, you can buy five or six pieces; for the price of a small brand bag, you can buy five or six pieces. This is Baigou, which produces 33 categories of luggage and more than 30,000 varieties, with an annual export transaction value of 400 to 500 million yuan. It has been awarded the titles of "Hebei Baiqiang Market" and "China's Luggage Capital".
Baigou Town is located in the hinterland of Beijing, Tianjin and Baoding, and belongs to Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province. Historically, it was a famous water and land terminal in northern China. In the late Qing Dynasty, it was known as the "Metropolis of Yannan". This small town with a population of only 110,000 receives an average of more than 300,000 visitors from all directions every day, and more than 100 million people come to Baigou for shopping and sightseeing throughout the year. With an annual output of 300-500 million bags, Baigou is called the luggage capital of China.
The town turns into a "luggage capital"
In addition to the domestic market, Baigou luggage is also exported to more than 120 countries and regions including France, the United States, Russia, Japan, and Brazil. , perhaps it is difficult for many people to imagine that its development started when a few farmers sewed artificial leather bicycle seat covers more than 30 years ago.
During the Cultural Revolution, Baigou was a poor country with many people and little land, and was a well-educated place. But in the autumn of 1971, this almost barren land began to change, and things got out of hand. More than 30 years ago, these farmers were Zhang Guoqing, the former captain of the Eighth Production Team of Gaoqiao Village, Baigou Town, and accountant Li Mingxin. They pooled together the 250 yuan they had spent to buy a watch for their daughter and cotton-padded clothes for winter, and bought them back from Tianjin. Two bundles of faux leather material. Using a broken sewing machine as the main facility, the first artificial leather bicycle seat cover was processed. In the following two years, it was still in Gaoqiao Village that these farmers, who faced the loess and turned their backs to the sky, produced the first batch of the simplest handbags in Baigou. Due to the huge profits, local people followed suit. As a result, this industry grew rapidly in Baigou.
Perhaps Zhang Guoqing and Li Mingxin did not realize at the time that using a broken sewing machine as the main equipment and simple processing with 250 yuan as capital to earn a little money to support their family, they Baigou Town, which used to be "covered in dirt on sunny days and legs covered in mud on rainy days", has become the "Luggage Capital" of China today.
Since the beginning of these handbags with simple tools and simple workmanship, Baigou people’s luggage dreams have been endless: in 1974, Baigou people launched the first folder; after 1976, Baigou people People produced the first student bag; in 1977, Baigou people began to prepare simple hardware accessories; in 1980, individual villagers began to use markets and temple fairs to quietly sell their own bags...
Today , Baigou Town has developed its own luggage R&D center and has more than 1,200 independent luggage brands. The town has formed 300 enterprises with more than 300 employees, more than 3,000 individual processing enterprises, and nearly 2,000 Chinese and foreign brands. Well-known brands have opened more than 1,000 general agents and direct sales stores in Baigou, and they export 1.5 billion bags in the middle of the year. Therefore, Baigou Town has been identified as a "National Small Town Development and Reform Pilot Town" by 11 ministries and commissions including the National Development and Reform Commission, named as a "National Small Town Construction Demonstration Town" by the Ministry of Construction, and named "China's Sustainable Development Demonstration Town" by the United Nations Development Program. Small Town Pilot", was named "National Model Group for National Unity and Progress" by the State Council, and was named "National Advanced Town in Creating Civilized Villages and Towns" by the Central Civilization Committee.
Rapidly spreading the "luggage road"
In fact, the development road of Baigou luggage is not smooth. Under the guidance of the past extreme left line and the constraints of the planned economic system, the luggage products processed by farmers in their spare time were regarded as the "tail of capitalism", and the finished products sold in the market were confiscated. These measures have dampened farmers' enthusiasm for production. It also restricted the development of Baigou luggage at that time.
In the early 1980s, the development of Baigou luggage industry truly entered its golden age. After that, Baigou people spontaneously formed a market for artificial leather accessories and accessories. Gradually, Gaoqiao and some rural surplus laborers in some villages and streets began to separate from land management, and a considerable number of family-style luggage processing professional workshops were formed, with Gaoqiao as the axis. The heart scatters radially to the periphery at an alarming speed. In the following years, Baigou luggage sales had a fixed location and a fixed base of luggage sales staff. Up to several hundred people were a sales force dispersed across the country to promote Baigou luggage products. At that time, Baigou people established a luggage road all over the country, set up stalls in other places, and even entered shopping malls owned by various countries. At that time, every family made luggage and everyone promoted it, and Baigou became popular for a while.
By the end of the 1990s, Baigou luggage had been sold to 28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country and had established a monopoly in some parts of the north. During this period, Baigou Luggage formed a professional sales team, with professionals purchasing raw and auxiliary materials, and specialized households specializing in printing, tailoring, design and other auxiliary work. The emergence of fine division of labor made the production and production of Baigou Luggage more competitive. Sales begin to move into a virtuous cycle. At present, Baigou luggage industry has more than 500,000 employees.
After realizing the powerful role of the Internet, Baigou Town began to call on Baigou enterprises to promote their products through the Internet. Among them, Baigou Online Luggage City currently has more than 20 products, companies, and brands online. In the domestic market, 80% of the bags sold in Beijing come from Baigou. In 2004, Baigou bags had a market share of 53% in the three major markets of North China, Northeast China and Northwest China. Baigou's local brand products are many times cheaper than those famous brand products that cost tens of thousands of yuan. In foreign markets, local Baigou brands represented by "Yutu" are also gradually opening up the international market, and some products have been sold to Russia, Japan, France, Australia and other countries and regions.
The brand has become the "Capital of Luggage and Bags"
The reason why Baigou has become the most important town in the north - the "Capital of Luggage and Bags" is inseparable from the change in the market product concept of Baigou people. At present, "starting with bags and revitalizing with brands" has been deeply engraved in their minds.
After the farmers who came out of the soil used bags to build their homes, because "there is no concept of bag brands at all, whichever bag is easy to buy will be labeled with that brand", and Baigou relied entirely on counterfeiting and OEM operations. Counterfeiting of famous brands was prevalent for a while. Over time, you will be hit, not punished, and your profits will become lower and lower. For a period of time in the 1990s, Baigou became synonymous with a concentration of counterfeit and shoddy goods. This greatly damaged Baigou's commercial image. For a long time, when people mentioned "Baigou", they would Associating it with fake and shoddy products, the Baigou market has suffered heavy losses. In the late 1990s, under the impact of famous foreign brands, faced with patent litigation, administrative penalties and market squeeze, some savvy merchants began to try to become brand agents, and Baigou embarked on a new path. road to development. By the end of 2002, there was a rush to register famous brands in Baigou luggage. Along this road, Baigou has grown into the "luggage capital" of the civilized country.
At present, Baigou has registered more than 1,200 trademarks and brands. Several brands have been awarded provincial well-known brands. Among them, Yutu has been nominated as a Chinese famous brand and won the first and second prizes in the China Leather Industry Design Competition for two consecutive years. Jade Rabbit, Sideli and Golden Dolphin have obtained the China Leather Association genuine leather mark. At the same time, through the development of large-scale commerce and the construction of large markets, Baitong has attracted more than 5,000 well-known international and domestic brands such as Crown, Wanlima, Apple, Montagut, and Forest Fox in the Luggage Trading City and International Luggage City.
Brand is the embodiment of the product and the core price of the enterprise. Only with the brand can the product image be enhanced, the profit margin of the enterprise be increased, and the enterprise achieve sustained and rapid development. Baigou has recognized this clearly and lit up the golden sign of "brand-building town". It has provided policy support and guidance for enterprises to register their own trademarks, act as agents for domestic and foreign brands, and adopt the brand management brand.