Domestic fashion brands become hot consumer trends in China

Xiao Junfeng (left), deputy general manager and chief operating officer of Tianjin Seagull Watch Group Co., Ltd., introduces a Seagull watch during an online shopping festival on Dec. 10, 2023. (Photo/www.app2020.tjyun.com)

Chinese consumers have shown increasing interest in homegrown fashion brands, thanks to efforts made by cities across the country to cultivate new consumption growth areas by expanding the market for domestic fashion brands and products.

By leveraging live-streamed e-commerce, north China's Tianjin municipality has boosted the sales of local brands and featured products.

The municipal government of Tianjin launched the city's first e-commerce festival last year. Spanning major shopping days from Nov. 10, 2023 to Feb. 24, 2024, the event has seen the growing popularity of local brands and products among young consumers, including watch brand Seagull, children's face cream brand Yumeijing, Yangliuqing woodblock new year pictures, colored clay figurines, and sea salt.

Domestic fashion brands delivered outstanding sales performances during the festival, with Tianjin Haihe Dairy Co., Ltd. selling more than 200,000 bags of milk, and Yumeijing selling more than 10,000 sets of one of its skincare series, both breaking their one-day sales records, according to Zhang Wei, head of the e-commerce department of Tianjin’s Bureau of Commerce.

The time-honored watch brand Seagull has been collaborating with e-commerce platforms in recent years to bring its unique technologies and products closer to consumers, according to Xiao Junfeng, deputy general manager and chief operating officer of Tianjin Seagull Watch Group Co., Ltd.

Many watch series jointly designed by Seagull and other brands have sold well on e-commerce platforms, with young consumers comprising the majority of the buyers, Xiao said.

The company recently promoted its products via livestreams at a museum of its watches, namely the Seagull Watch Museum. The livestreams received many real-time positive comments from viewers, including "A domestic brand with a rich heritage. I'm tempted to buy one!" and "The new designs are stylish!"

"We hope to get closer to young consumers and help them learn about the charm of homegrown fashion brands," Xiao said.

Quanzhou city, southeast China's Fujian province, held a shopping festival featuring local fashion brands and goods for use during the Spring Festival.

A shopping festival featuring local fashion brands kicks off in Quanzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, Dec. 22, 2023. (Photo/Quanzhou bureau of commerce)

The shopping festival gathered more than 20 fashion brands from Quanzhou, covering multiple product categories, including men's clothing and children's garments. A good number of support activities, such as a music festival and snack festival, have also been arranged to enrich the citizens' experience.

The local government has provided subsidies to vendors taking part in the festival, benefiting citizens with special offers, lucky draws, and chances to get products free of cost.

"For us, this festival offers an opportunity to intensively showcase our products," said Wang Xuan, an executive of the Quanzhou branch of Chinese sportswear brand Anta.

According to Wang, the brand has seen its daily sales exceed 100,000 yuan ($14,080) every weekend since the festival kicked off.

The ongoing shopping festival reflects Quanzhou's efforts to promote domestic fashion brands in recent years. As home to many well-known domestic brands, including Anta, Xtep, Septwolves, and Joeone, Quanzhou has actively boosted the consumption of domestic fashion brands by creating opportunities for them to display their products.

The city's retail sales of social consumer goods surpassed 620 billion yuan last year, with that of domestic fashion brands reaching approximately 110 billion yuan.

Dongguan city in south China's Guangdong Province, which enjoys a burgeoning industry of trendy toys, has made continuous efforts to facilitate the innovation-driven development of the trendy toy culture and the consumption of domestic trendy toy brands in recent years.

The city recently issued a document announcing multiple stimulus measures to spur consumption during the Spring Festival shopping season, including offering subsidies, money awards, and coupons, as well as allowing relevant authorities to open special fairs in key business districts for Spring Festival shopping, and allowing key enterprises and railway stations to set up temporary stalls to sell featured food, trendy toys, and other local specialties.

Records show that as of the end of 2022, the city's number of trendy toy manufacturing-related businesses above designated size, or those with an annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan, reached 87, and the revenue generated by these enterprises reached nearly 16.66 billion yuan, up 29.8 percent year on year.

With a full-fledged industrial system and high-quality cultural resources, the city's trendy toy industry is marching toward a new business form featuring the integration of manufacturing and cultural creativity.

Motor Nuclear, a Dongguan-based mecha toy maker, has found success by basing products on classical Chinese stories and characters in recent years, winning the hearts of mecha toy enthusiasts at home and abroad.

"We want to promote featured cultural and creative products this way," said Wang Dongdong, founder of Motor Nuclear, who explained that the brand's popular Chinese-style mecha toys were inspired by Chinese classic novels such as “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and “The Investiture of the Gods.”