China's manufacturers ramp up efficiency for arrival of new products

Thanks to enhanced technology, China's factories have exponentially shortened their development cycle of new products -- their frequency of introducing new products progresses from a monthly basis to a weekly one, as a way to better cater to consumers' demand.

Workers are busy receiving orders during the just concluded 618 shopping festival at a factory in Zhejiang province. (Photo/yangtse.com)

According to statistics from Tmall, a popular online marketplace in China, over 90 percent of 100,000 factories distributed in 10 large producing areas, including south China's Guangzhou city, east China's Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, launched new varieties of products during the just concluded mid-year e-commerce shopping festival known as 618 (June 18).

Over 2,000 industries across the country redoubled their efforts to provide the latest products they were able to offer during the 618 shopping festival, with the sales from June 1 to 15 increasing by 2.1 times compared to the same period last year.

A small furniture factory situated in Nankang, east China's Jiangxi province, serves as a salient example of such efforts. According to the post-90s factory director Chen Longgang, in response to China's newly-released three-child policy, it took them only three days to design a brand new variety of desks aimed at homes with three children.

The past few years have seen an improved efficiency of the arrival of new products on Tmall, which can be attributed to the enhanced response speed from factories at the source, disclosed Chen.

Chen's factory launched eight new furniture products this year. Although they were sold for advanced orders, many of them are able to be mass produced starting from June 16, the factory head explained.

Among this year's products directly sold by factories during the shopping festival, those from new brands took up a proportion of 30 percent. Behind a widely popular bag, which sold over 1,000 pieces within seven days, was the superb manufacturing capacity of eight factories that turned the design into a reality.

The competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing comes from sound industrial clusters, high-level processing technology and a stable supply chain, said Hu Qimu, a senior researcher at a digital economic think-tank.

Hu believes that when these factories seize the opportunity of the fast development of the digital economy, the manufacturing capacity in China will become more resilient and more responsive to the market through in-depth innovation.