Bags / Shoes & Accessories

Watson & Band data observation, when it comes to Putian shoes, what is the first thing that comes to your mind, "counterfeit shoes"? "Cotton shoes"? There is a joke circulating on the Internet - how to judge whether the NIKE shoes you bought are real or fake? The one that has been worn for one year is genuine, and the one that has been worn for three years is Putian.

It can be seen that Putian shoes have formed a unified and clear cognition in the minds of consumers with labels such as "high quality" and "high imitation", which is also where it has been controversial. In order to reverse the embarrassing situation of Putian shoes, the Putian government has intensified its anti-counterfeiting efforts in recent years. In April this year, the collective brand "Putian Shoes" was registered, and the name of Putian "Shoemaking Capital" was rectified. However, the threshold for collective brand authorization of "Putian Shoes" is high. Just one of the conditions, "the company must have its own brand", will stop most of the small and medium-sized shoe companies from the door.

The lack of its own brand, coupled with high raw material and labor costs, makes the profit margins of Putian small and medium-sized shoe companies continue to be compressed. The domestic shoe product track is close to saturation, and the market is fighting fiercely. This year, the epidemic has repeatedly occurred across the country, showing a trend of multiple distribution and frequent occurrence in multiple places. For the above reasons, the domestic sales difficulties faced by footwear products cannot be alleviated in the short term. For small and medium-sized shoe companies, it is undoubtedly a good choice to expand the international trade market.

In fact, some large, medium and small shoe companies in Putian have been working hard in overseas markets for many years, and some companies are mainly exporting. Let's first look at the data of China's footwear exports in 2021.

In 2021, my country's footwear exports will increase in volume and price

According to Huacheng's import and export data, my country's footwear product import and export trade has always maintained a development trend in which exports are greater than imports. In 2021, as the impact of the epidemic weakened, my country's footwear exports rebounded rapidly, with 8.732 billion pairs of footwear exported throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 18.1%. In 2021, my country's footwear export prices will continue to rise, rising by 15%. Driven by price increases, footwear exports not only rebounded rapidly, but also hit a new high in the past four years. The total footwear exports for the year were 47.935 billion US dollars. A year-on-year increase of 35.3%.

According to the data of Huacheng Import and Export, Fujian Province is a major province of footwear manufacturing and export in my country, and the footwear industry is one of the pillar industries in Fujian Province. In 2021, the footwear industry in Fujian Province will seize opportunities such as overseas demand recovery and order return to increase exports, and the export scale has fully exceeded the pre-epidemic level. According to the statistics of Fuzhou Customs, in 2021, Fujian Province will export a total of 2.49 billion pairs of footwear products, worth 79.77 billion yuan, an increase of 22.6% and 26.3% year-on-year respectively, and an increase of 3.5% and 2.9% respectively compared with 2019. Among them, Putian City will export 330 million pairs of footwear products in 2021, with a value of 14.82 billion yuan, an increase of 40.2% and 37.3% year-on-year respectively. At present, the main target markets for the export of footwear products are the United States, the European Union and ASEAN, and the development of emerging markets such as Russia, Chile and South Africa has achieved remarkable results.

The export of footwear has been vigorously supported by the government

At the beginning of this year, Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shu Jueting said that for labor-intensive industries such as shoemaking, the Ministry of Commerce has successively issued a series of targeted policy measures in response to the difficulties and demands faced by enterprises, including identifying a number of footwear products as national foreign trade Transform and upgrade bases and increase cultivation efforts, hold overseas brand exhibitions of footwear products to help enterprises develop international markets, and promote the relief of international logistics pressure. The Ministry of Commerce will go all out to implement the policy of stabilizing foreign trade, encourage traditional industries such as shoemaking to accelerate the development of new business formats and new models, and promote the high-quality development of traditional export industries.

Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation reported that in 2021, Putian Customs will formulate and introduce ten measures, involving enterprise certification, export customs clearance, regulatory reform, brand protection, fault-tolerant law enforcement, etc., to support Putian shoe companies to enhance their export competitiveness. Putian Customs has extended the scope of "advance declaration" to Putian shoe enterprises with general credit management, and instructed Putian shoe enterprises to apply for customs export pre-ruling in advance and determine trade costs as soon as possible. In response to the needs of new products, new materials research and development, new processes and regional brand creation, Putian Customs organized research on common testing technologies and key technologies, and expanded the testing scope to 1,062 items of 65 types of products in 6 categories, realizing Putian footwear testing. All required items are covered.

With the support of government policies at all levels, Putian shoe-making enterprises have more guarantees to enter the overseas market. RCEP has come into effect on January 1, 2022. The free trade zone with the largest population, the largest economic and trade scale, and the most potential for development in the world has officially landed, and will become an accelerator and a new engine for the growth of foreign trade of China and even the entire RCEP members. The official entry into force of RCEP has brought significant development opportunities for Putian shoe companies to go overseas. The RCEP region will become an important export market for footwear products.

Different from large shoe companies with abundant funds, rich foreign trade experience and sufficient manpower, small and medium-sized shoe companies often fall into a confused and passive situation when developing overseas markets. Among them, the biggest stumbling block is customer acquisition. How can small, medium and micro shoe companies break through the dilemma of foreign trade getting customers?

According to Watson & Band data, the current mainstream foreign trade customer acquisition channels include exhibitions, B2B foreign trade platforms, independent websites, search engines, and social platform marketing. Many domestic and foreign trade exhibitions have been canceled or postponed indefinitely due to the spread of the epidemic. In addition, the high participation costs, plus the cost of accommodation and transportation, are at least 100,000 yuan. Generally, small businesses do not have this budget. On the other hand, B2B platforms represented by Alibaba have serious homogeneity, increasingly fierce competition, and rising customer acquisition costs. They often need to invest hundreds of thousands, and the quality of inquiries is low. The process of establishing an independent website is cumbersome, and a lot of energy is invested in the early stage, such as promotion, drainage, etc., and the effective period is long. Searching on your own through Google, Sohu and other search engines is not only time-consuming and inefficient, but also boring and cumbersome, making it difficult to persist for a long time. And through the marketing of social platforms and short video platforms represented by WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok, in order to achieve results, there are higher requirements for the accumulation of fans and the Internet marketing thinking of operators.

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report, if you want to open up the international market, the use of big data customer acquisition software can achieve twice the result with half the effort. Watson & Band has been paying attention to the Putian shoe industry for many years, and is committed to helping small manufacturers successfully sell their products overseas. Relying on big data and AI in-depth mining technology, it integrates 508 mainstream search engines and 25 general search engines in 187 countries around the world, providing massive customs data and global enterprise directory data, allowing our foreign trade customers to quickly find accurate potential customer information, Take the first step to develop overseas markets.