"This place used to be very poor, and the natural conditions for agriculture were not good. Many farmers have to go out to do business and sell sugar with rattles. When the local people are struggling for survival, the Yiwu government can only consider accepting them for survival when driving away the' street markets' in many places. I dare not say that the leaders in Yiwu have foresight. At that time, it was just an instinct: to support farmers and develop the economy. " Ma Lihong, vice president of Party School of Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee and vice president of Zhejiang Administration College, told China Economic Weekly.
As Dean Ma said, today's Yiwu is shaken by waves of drums. Although Yiwu leaders have no foresight, Yiwu people know what to do and what not to do. Yiwu people dare to be the first in the world. In the early 1980s, Yiwu took the lead in relaxing the industrial and commercial registration of self-employed households, allowing farmers to do business and opening up urban and rural markets. Farmers who let go of their hands and feet to do business like a duck to water have joined the business team. During this period, some business households initially completed the primitive accumulation of capital through operation, bought machines and set up processing plants, forming a family business model of "front shop and back factory".
The generous acceptance of Yiwu government has improved the living conditions of local people. From the government's point of view, with the increase of taxes, urban development will be more emboldened. Unexpectedly, once the market is formed and the circulation is large, businessmen flock to it. For a time, small commodities in Jinhua, Yongkang and other places were concentrated in Yiwu, and the Yiwu market grew gradually, eventually forming a distribution center, which was famous throughout the country and even the world. It is difficult to describe Yiwu with a plane. It is difficult to find a clear Yiwu among the crowds, logistics and almost invisible capital flows in several major markets. Fortunately, we try to dissect the development route of this grassroots city with no resources and no state investment. This will be much clearer and easier. Chicken feathers for sugar: the grassroots foundation of civil trade Zong Chengying, a businessman in Yiwu, has now become an entrepreneur. His business card is the general manager of Yiwu Mona Hosiery Company. The factory is not small in scale, with more than 3,000 employees. It is one of the sock factories in Yiwu. Although people immediately think of Langsha when it comes to socks industry in Yiwu, Zong doesn't seem to admit that Langsha's factory is better than their two brothers'. "They pay more attention to publicity, because the main market is sold in China, so the brand is very important; And a large part of our sales are foreign trade, so we are weaker than them in publicity. " "I have been in business for 30 years, and most of the time I am not doing business. I met a female boss in business before. She envies us for doing business and has little thought. But I told her that doing business is really tiring, and the profit is much better than doing business. To talk about industry is to be steady, and nothing else can compare with doing business. " Zong is qualified to say so, because he is an entrepreneur transformed from a businessman. In Yiwu, almost all local entrepreneurs are businessmen. "The earliest is probably 1970, starting to do business, starting with chicken feathers for sugar. All the old businessmen in Yiwu started from this small business. I can't help it Yiwu is poor, with only a few points per capita. If you stay in the field honestly, you will definitely not have enough to eat at home. Therefore, it has become a fashion for farmers to make sugar cakes with brown sugar at home and carry burdens for chicken feathers outside. When they return to the commune enterprise, they can exchange some money. They use chicken feathers as feather dusters commonly used in Zhejiang families, and the money is used to supplement the family. " "Chicken feathers for sugar for a long time, the heart is wild, always want to do some business. Later, I secretly looked for some commune and team enterprises in southern Jiangsu, and found a relationship to approve some daily necessities such as buttons and sell them in local stores. This was not allowed at that time, so it had to be done in secret. I took a good holiday in the production team the day before, set out at night, walked to Yiwu Station, took a bus to Jiaxing in the morning, transferred to Suzhou, arrived in Suzhou at noon, took the goods from the factory and turned back immediately, arrived in Jiaxing at night, and took the night train directly to Yiwu to work in the early morning. After work, I took the goods hidden at home to the small shop I wanted. " Zong said that two days of hard work can probably be equivalent to one or two months' work performance of the production team. For Zong's experience, Feng Zhilai, a local retired veteran cadre in Yiwu, evaluated it as the root of Yiwu small commodity market. "Without these ordinary people being forced out of this road by life, the next small commodity market in Yiwu will not prosper even if it is opened. They walked up and down the commercial road, and they were familiar with the source and destination of each road before they had the market foundation. The starting point of these foundations can almost be summarized by the chicken feathers of sugar handed down from generation to generation in Yiwu tradition. " The starting point from booth to greenhouse is 1984, which is the focus of Yiwu small commodity market. Xie Gaohua, then secretary of the Yiwu County Party Committee, saw that there were more and more people selling all kinds of small commodities in Yiwu street. Under the unclear political situation, he decided to put these street stalls in a suitable place, so he decided to invest hundreds of thousands to build a greenhouse. In this way, the embryonic form of small commodity market was born. According to local news reports in Yiwu, because of this incident, Xie Gaohua, a local cadre, was respected by local people after his retirement, and the first generation of businessmen in Yiwu often gave gifts to the elderly who had no power. In a sense, building a greenhouse itself is a trivial matter, but in the eyes of ordinary people, it is an recognition of the market that was originally in a state of nobody's interest. What is Zong doing at this moment? He works alone. "At that time, I went to Guangxi to do business. At first, I set up a stall in Guilin, Liuzhou, selling daily necessities and everything. However, the supply of goods slowly moved from southern Jiangsu to Yiwu, because at this time many Yiwu people had already taken goods from southern Jiangsu and sold them locally. They took a lot of goods, and the price was much cheaper than ours. And we take the goods from Yiwu to other places to sell. We sell outside all the year round and come back several times a year. " What Zong remembers vividly is that there are many thieves in Guangxi. "But they dare not steal from Yiwu people, because there were already many Yiwu people there at that time, and they were very United. Thieves know that it is miserable to be caught stealing from Yiwu people, and they are often killed. Therefore, our local power is also great. " "Later, the local market began to build and we entered the market. And my business scope has also narrowed. I remember selling buttons for a long time, and I began to have a division of labor with my family. Someone specializes in getting goods at Qiaotou in Yiwu and Wenzhou, and I sell them in Guangxi. At that time, there were more and more Zhejiang people in Guangxi, and the business profit was very thin. However, my business is good, and I earn money out of stock. I often visit the market and try to make the arrival time different from others. I don't deliver when others arrive in large quantities, so I just want to send it to me in Yiwu when a large number of booths are out of stock. Because the tasks of garment factories are countless and time is tight, they will reduce their prices if there are more goods in the market, and they will also increase by one point and two points if they are out of stock. This kind of business will make a lot of money. " At this stage, Yiwu commodity market is basically supported by merchants like Zong selling goods outside. At that time, it was not much different from a large number of domestic stall-type and greenhouse-type small commodity markets. If there must be a difference, it is the merchants who support this market. Because they have different eyes, what they sell is more or less the difference of goods distributed locally. The difference between Zong and other businessmen in Guangxi market will eventually make Yiwu stand out in the small commodity market-the business reason is very simple, because there are many shipments, so the prices of goods are cheap. If this cheap price can be maintained, this distribution center will become a depression. Depression effect and variety expansion "Slowly, people from other places know that it is cheaper to get goods in Yiwu, and many Guangxi locals have also started to get goods in Yiwu. These people's local sales are more stable and we are beginning to turn. " Zong said. This is an extension of the depression effect. In the late 1990s, Yiwu's popularity began to rise, which is an extremely important link in Yiwu's market expansion. When merchants from all over the country began to run to Yiwu, this small commodity market has become a large domestic wholesale market, while small commodity markets in other places have become its retail places. At this time, its position in China has begun to stabilize. What is Zong doing at this moment? He switched to lace. "At that time, people in Taiwan Province Province were called Lace, and this product there was very cheap, because it was all processed by machines. However, there are few factories in China that use machines to process lace, and the price is also expensive. So we do business with them in Fujian. In fact, we also know that many Fujian people smuggle goods from fishing boats in Taiwan Province Province. We can't do this, and we dare not do it. At that time, our business was to buy lace from Fujian people and then sell it in Yiwu. Because Yiwu's garment accessories are cheap, they are already quite famous, and many garment factories come to get them. The business is simple and the money is much earned, which is the best time since I did business. " At this time, Zong has set up several stalls in Yiwu Commodity Market. From a macro point of view, like many merchants in Yiwu, what he is doing at this time is to expand the business scope of this small commodity market and further consolidate its position in operating varieties. If the low price makes Yiwu's small commodities stand out, the gradual completion of varieties will further expand its magnetic attraction. One-stop purchasing is the idea of all factories and businessmen, and Zong's efforts are adding this power to Yiwu. At this time, Zong's younger brother was doing socks business, and the place to get the goods was a place called Zhuji Datang near Yiwu, which is a famous hometown of socks so far. "Socks business is longer than I do lace business, because lace machine was introduced to Xiaoshan, Zhejiang and other places soon, and the lace produced is much cheaper than that in Taiwan Province Province. At first, lace in Taiwan Province province could win all kinds of colors, but it soon caught up here. At this time, I went back to Yiwu to do socks business with my brother. " Zong said. "At this time, the market in Yiwu began to expand. In addition to the gradual distribution of several markets, I remember that several markets such as Huangyuan were built at that time, and the business in the small commodity market was particularly good. Our brother's booth was bought early, with a good location and a lot of business, but the goods at home often can't keep up. At this time, my brother moved the idea of setting up a factory. " As for the expansion of Yiwu market, Xie Shihuang, who is now the director of strategic development in Hangzhou Alibaba Company, has studied for a long time. Alibaba, where Xie is located, is the largest B2B website in the world and the most active one in the new economy. But Xie admits that the development of Yiwu market has greatly inspired Alibaba. Alibaba often ponders the Yiwu market. "Different guests have different needs. Small businessmen like to squeeze in the greenhouse market because what they want is cheap. And big businesses may do a few hundred or tens of millions of transactions, and a little difference in price may be a big sum. Of course, they want the comfort of trading. For these subtle differences of customers, the market cannot but consider them. Only in this way can business become more and more prosperous. " My brother and sister discussed for a long time about building a factory in the industry, because it was not easy to make up their minds to enter this industry, but because the market was good, they finally made up their minds. "I said, if we want to do business, we will enter the best machine and do the best things. It is necessary to distance yourself from the low-end goods of Datang, and there will be sales. " Zong recalled their considerations when they set up the factory. In fact, the consideration of the Zong brothers is a little accurate. After 1995, due to the increasing sales volume, Yiwu people found that it was a relatively economical thing to build factories around the small commodity market. Because there is only a single variety of sales in the small commodity market, it is enough to give full play to the production capacity of a factory. Mastering the industry, for businessmen in small commodity markets, on the one hand, reduces the transportation and transaction costs, and more importantly, the factory allows them to combine industry and commerce in their own hands, which can make them understand the market better and be more calm than a single businessman and factory. "We are lucky, because foreigners began to appear in Yiwu almost when our factory was put into production. They have more requirements for mid-to high-end products and bigger orders. However, the price is fierce. Fortunately, we have a factory in hand. If you can't make a list, no one in the market can do it, even in most parts of China, so exports are rising rapidly. They don't like many cheap goods, so they will come to us in the end. Soon our factory was saturated, and we have been very nervous until now. In the past, the first-line knitting socks in the factory cost more than 500 yuan a month under the condition of adequate food and clothing, but the flow of people was too large. Because of the tight production, I calculated that it is not cost-effective for them to move at a low salary. I simply add 750 yuan to all employees at one time to stabilize them. " For Wenzhou and Yiwu, two cities supported by Zhejiang consortia, Shi Jinchuan, an economics professor at Zhejiang University, is more optimistic about Yiwu. "Because Yiwu is more open, bringing businessmen from all over the world to Yiwu, giving them the wholesale and retail price difference, and then letting foreigners enter their own countries with localized business is obviously more conducive to selling China products.