The counterattack of the Xiang girls after the 80s: returned to their hometown to make palace lamps from night school, and opened up new sales channels with the help of Pinduoduo

From the May Day holiday to the sweet and romantic "520", the whole May is filled with love and joy, and Yi Shaoling also ushered in the busiest day of the year.

This is an authentic post-80s rural Xiang girl: at the age of 15, she went south to work, took out the money she had saved for two years to study design in night school, and finally became acquainted with traditional handicrafts. Although it was only in the initial Chinese, Yi Shaoling, who was ingenious, independently designed more than 100 kinds of palace lamp products, hanging them all the way from Yongzhou Mountain Village to many important places.

Not only that, traditional handicrafts have become a new tool for Yi Shaoling to drive prosperity in her hometown. In 2020, with the help of the new e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, Yi Shaoling, who returned to her hometown to set up a factory, quickly opened the situation. In only half a year, the non-woven palace lamps, swastika lanterns and other festive supplies designed by her rushed to the first place on the hot sales list on the platform, selling more than 30,<> pieces. Now, she is also ready to use cross-border e-commerce platforms to make her products go abroad and spread Chinese traditional culture to farther places.

▲With the help of the new e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, the non-woven palace lamp, swastika lantern and other festive supplies designed and produced by Yi Shaoling, a post-80s Xiang girl, sold more than 30,<> pieces, and traditional handicrafts became a new tool for her hometown to become rich.

From assembly line workers to original designers

Yi Shaoling was born in a village in Dong'an County, Yongzhou, Hunan Province, where the mountains and waters are beautiful and the people are beautiful, and the exquisite Qing Dynasty old house complex is still preserved, and the local dragon and lion making skills, paper cutting, sugar painting, bamboo shoot painting and other intangible cultural heritage items have been passed down from generation to generation. Influenced by traditional craftsmanship, Yi Shaoling has loved to paint on the walls of her home since she was a child.

In 2000, due to family reasons, Yi Shaoling went south to Guangdong after finishing junior high school and entered an electronics factory in Dongguan to work. In the two or three years of part-time work, Yi Shaoling still deeply realized the importance of reading, without knowledge, she can only stay on the assembly line for a lifetime. So, she went to night school out of her own pocket to study graphic design, which cost almost all of her savings.

After attending night school, Yi Shaoling came into contact with computers for the first time. With only a few operations, the exquisite pattern can be presented on the computer, which Yi Shaoling finds particularly magical.

"At that time, you had to pay 1500,3 yuan to learn one software, and I gritted my teeth and signed up for three." Yi Shaoling said that every night after work rushed to the night school, and then returned to the dormitory basically at 12 o'clock at night, the factory did not even have a hot water, all took a cold shower.

In 2005, Yi Shaoling graduated from night school, successfully obtained a designer certificate, applied to a factory to develop gift boxes, and changed from an assembly line worker to a designer in front of a computer.

While working, Yi Shaoling also sells women's clothing, socks and skin care products on e-commerce platforms part-time. With a mentality of trying it out, she put the small pentagram lantern product she designed on the e-commerce platform for sale.

"Unexpectedly, the market response was good, very popular with parents and children, and sold for 20,000 or 30,000 yuan a week." Yi Shaoling said.

▲ Dong'an County, Yongzhou, where Yi Shaoling was born, still retains the exquisite workmanship of the Qing Dynasty old mansion complex. Influenced by traditional craftsmanship, Yi Shaoling has loved to draw since she was a child and has a talent for fine arts.

In 2012, an intangible inheritor in Zhejiang found Yi Shaoling and customized a paper-cut palace lamp for a play, which also contributed to the fate of Yi Shaoling and the palace lamp.

"Because the lanterns made before are all pentagrams, cubes, the structure is relatively simple, and the lantern photos sent by the customer are hexagonal above and below, and oval in the middle, which is very complicated." Yi Shaoling said that the internal structure of the lantern, even if it moves a little, the shape of the outside will change accordingly, and the difficulty of making will also increase.

During that time, customers had to call every day to urge progress and change details, and Yi Shaoling took more than a month to make it after many polishing.

"It's never been an experience where two people they've never met each other, one by one, go to fulfill the details of an order and then get things done together." Yi Shaoling said that she herself has always been a little social fear, and when she did offline business before, she needed to go to the door to find customers, and she always found it difficult to open her mouth.

Although the order of the palace lamp this time is only 3000,<> yuan, it has aroused Yi Shaoling's enthusiasm for e-commerce entrepreneurship. On the e-commerce platform, Yi Shaoling only needs to take photos of the products and upload them to the store, "consumers are willing to buy and place orders, and buyers and sellers use social software to communicate, which is good." ”

Leverage Pinduoduo to open up new sales channels

In 2013, Yi Shaoling officially started her e-commerce entrepreneurial journey.

"At that time, there were very few merchants who made paper-cutting palace lights, a square lantern, plus a customized name, the cost was not high, but it sold very well." Yi Shaoling said.

With more and more imitators in the market, Yi Shaoling's business began to enter a bottleneck period, and the good reputation accumulated in the early days helped her again.

"I have a customer in Hubei who places orders every year, which has supported me through the most difficult time of entrepreneurship." Yi Shaoling said that this customer was also originally found from the Internet, and at first did not fully believe her, and the order amount was only 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, but she worked overtime every time to design and produce, and delivered in advance, winning the recognition of the other party.

At the most difficult time, this customer placed a one-time order of more than 40,<> yuan, which helped Yi Shaoling solve the urgent need.

▲ Live broadcast, Duoduo video and other tools have helped Yi Shaoling solve many after-sales problems in online sales and greatly reduced the return rate.

At the same time, in order to expand sales, Yi Shaoling chose to open a store in Pinduoduo. Different from the traditional style of palace lamps sold by supermarkets and street vendors, people are more willing to buy novel and chic design palace lamps on e-commerce platforms. She innovated from multiple dimensions such as product shape, size, and pattern, and finally a big red double-sided palace lamp became a store hit, with a turnover of more than 10,<> pieces.

Prior to this, Yi Shaoling's customers were mainly hotels, enterprises, tourist attractions and other places, and their needs were mainly customized. Entering Pinduoduo successfully opened up consumer groups for Yi Shaoling.

"Most of the customers who buy on the Pinduoduo platform are individual consumers, and the store soon reached an average of about 500 orders per day, and the monthly sales volume exceeded 20,<> orders." Yi Shaoling said.

In the face of the growing sales of the platform, Yi Shaoling has successively purchased 17 laser engraving and cutting machines, which can not only make products according to the different needs of different customers, but also not limited by the production materials, cardboard, pearlescent paper, non-woven fabrics, rice paper... can be cutout engraved.

In the company's production workshop, workers operate laser engraving and cutting machines, use lasers to engrave and cut non-woven fabrics, and a whole page of 14 double-sided big red characters are quickly engraved out, which can produce 3000,<> pieces per day.

"Unlike the offline market, the biggest difficulty in e-commerce sales lies in after-sales, and many consumers do not know how to install the paper-cutting palace lamp after buying it. The 'Duoduo Video' launched by Pinduoduo solves the installation problem well, consumers can see every step and precautions of installation clearly, which greatly facilitates consumers to install products by themselves and reduces the return rate. Yi Shaoling said that in the past, 100 products were sold, and 10 products were returned, but now the returned products have been reduced to 2.

Illuminate the way for the villagers to get rich

With years of painting skills and the spirit of hard work, Yi Shaoling has designed hundreds of unique palace lamps, and the images of insects, fish, birds, beasts and other images carved on them are lifelike. The unique handicrafts quickly attracted consumers' attention and even sold them to the Forbidden City in Beijing.

In January 2018, the Forbidden City in Beijing commissioned Yi Shaoling to make a New Year's palace lamp called "Forbidden City, All Things". Yi Shaoling designed according to the characteristics of the Forbidden City, which ordered 600 pieces at a time.

On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2021, Xiaomi also purchased Yi Shaoling's palace lamps and paper cuts, and also hung palace lamps in the company's canteen, each paper cut is more than one meter long, and it is engraved with the words "Four Seasons of Peace", Xiaomi logo and other words, which cannot be seen at a glance.

"Selling the palace lamp to the Forbidden City in Beijing gave me a lot of confidence." Yi Shaoling said that watching the palace lamps she designed sold to all parts of the country through the Pinduoduo platform, she was quite happy, and she could spread Chinese traditional culture while earning money.

In the Pinduoduo store operated by Yi Shaoling, consumers have a lot of praise for the paper-cutting palace lamp. For example, "The one used to decorate the wedding room has a good feeling, and now it looks much better with a lantern than a balloon." "It was exactly the same as the seller described, the shipment was very fast, the packaging was very careful, and it was a very satisfying purchase." "The color is very correct, the assembly is simple, and I also gave a hook, a conscientious seller."

▲ Yi Shaoling, who returned to her hometown to start a business, also led to the employment of more than 20 local villagers, and many left-behind women and elderly people worked in factories, which can not only take care of their families but also make money.

While decorating the lights of Wanjia with paper-cutting palace lights, Yi Shaoling also lit up the way for the villagers to get rich.

"Post-85" mother Li Yanyan previously worked in a factory in the local town, in order to facilitate the care of her three children, chose to work in Yi Shaoling's company nearby, responsible for operating laser engraving and cutting machines.

"Working 8 hours a day, the average salary a month is 3000,<> yuan." In Li Yanyan's view, her boss Yi Shaoling is a kind person, often talking to employees, treating guests, and helping to send employees' children to school on rainy days.

After the laser cutting is completed in the workshop, the dust removal, sorting, packaging and other links will be outsourced to the surrounding residents. "After the operation with the laser machine is completed, the dust on the paper cut needs to be wiped clean and bagged. Some elderly people and housewives will bring these jobs to their homes. Yi Shaoling said that on average, each person can earn more than 100 yuan a day.

Driven by Yi Shaoling, the local e-commerce peripheral industry in Dong'an County has also ushered in rapid development. Among them, in the field of express delivery, Dong'an County integrates express logistics resources such as postal, supply and marketing, "four links and one delivery" express, and commercial logistics, opens a number of logistics distribution lines, and provides logistics express services for three-level e-commerce service outlets in counties and villages according to the delivery time requirements of one frequency a day.

"In the past, there were only two express delivery companies in the township, but now there are basically express delivery companies that people are familiar with." Yi Shaoling said that with the increase in the number of express delivery orders, express delivery companies directly drive to the factory to pull parcels, and send this festive made in mountain villages directly to all parts of the country.