China’s leather city wants to make its mark globally
Juhuasuan, Alibaba Group’s sales and marketing platform for flash sales, has this month launched a strategic partnership with the city of Haining, Zhejiang province.
The project was officially launched with a series of sales-driven online initiatives, including a livestreaming sales event with representatives from the Haining city authorities, over three days, starting on October 18.
The collaboration is intended to raise the city’s international profile as a leather centre and reach younger consumers, especially those born after 1990, via Alibaba’s e-commerce sales channels. Enhancing the perceived ‘trendiness’ of leather was also mentioned, to meet younger Chinese shoppers’ perceived need for “beauty” and “personalisation”.
Already known as China’s leather capital, home to “thousands” of leather brands, a new leather garment is produced in Haining “every 1.3 seconds”.
Haining’s leather garment output, leather transaction volume and leather garment export numbers all rank first in China, while Haining China Leather City, a leather shopping mall, is home to “more than 5,000” brands, alone.
Local commentators have said they hope that, through Juhuasuan sharing its market insights with Haining’s leather industry professionals, the so-called leather capital of China will mature into a “world fashion capital”.
