Text/Zhang Wenhui Wang Lichen
How long does it take to make a small appliance?
In Cixi, Zhejiang, all parts can be found and assembled in less than an hour.
As the largest small home appliance industry cluster in China, Cixi has more than 2,000 complete home appliance companies and nearly 10,000 supporting companies in the city.
Best-selling heating appliances in Europe and the United States, electric fans traveling to Africa, electric irons and sockets at home...many of them come from Cixi.
Statistics show that about 60% of the world's small household appliances come from Cixi, with a market size of 100 billion yuan.
Cixi is also the world's largest production base for small household appliances such as electric irons, heaters, and sockets.
How did Cixi, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Ningbo City, turn a "small" market for home appliances into a "big" business worth hundreds of billions of dollars with a small but big scale?
Seize industrial business opportunities from market gaps
They range from air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines to small kitchen appliances, such as breakfast machines, air fryers, coffee machines, juicers, and small personal care appliances, such as hair dryers, curling irons, heaters, electric irons, etc. The products produced in Cixi cover more than 20 categories and thousands of varieties.
In fact, in the memory of the older generation of Cixi people, Cixi was once just a "cotton county", and production at that time was all centered around "a cotton plant."
Compared with now, Cixi has undoubtedly undergone earth-shaking changes.
The relevant person in charge of the Cixi Municipal Economic and Information Bureau told China News Service’s “This city has something to offer” column. Currently, the output value of Cixi’s smart home appliance industry above designated size has exceeded 100 billion yuan.
Exhibition board of Cixi Small Home Appliances Intelligent Manufacturing Town.
Data map.
Source: Released by Cixi
Talking about the development path of Cixi's small home appliance industry, Xu Jianfeng, director of the Institute of Economics of the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out in an interview with China News Service that this was due to Cixi's awareness of the vacancy in the production of small home appliances in the domestic market. , seize the market gap, and thus emerge suddenly.
Xu Jianfeng said that Cixi's small home appliance industry basically took shape in the 1990s.
After the reform and opening up, Cixi gradually developed and formed an industrial cluster by taking advantage of its proximity to Shanghai and abundant labor resources.
The Cixi government has made the home appliance industry a key development industry and has given great support in terms of land and factor supply.
The success of Cixi's small home appliance industry today is inseparable from a group of entrepreneurs with business acumen and the courage to think and act.
"Cixi's entrepreneurial spirit is very similar to Wenzhou's model." Xu Jianfeng said that in the early stages of development, Cixi would also produce some large appliances, but its competitive advantage was not obvious.
The entrepreneurs in Cixi are keenly aware that there is a vacancy in the small household appliances market.
Entrepreneurs in Cixi have firmly focused on this market, focused their efforts, and gradually formed the current scale of industrial clusters.
Cross-border e-commerce allows small home appliances to "grow little wings"
Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, many home appliance companies in Cixi have begun manufacturing for international brands. Through the window of the annual Canton Fair, the small home appliances they manufacture are sold all over the world, such as Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, Africa and other markets. , foreign trade developed rapidly and the scale of enterprises expanded.
Cixi Customs data shows that in 2023, Cixi's home appliance exports reached 26.13 billion yuan, accounting for 32.6% of the city's total exports, a year-on-year increase of 13.1%.
"In the past, Cixi's export of small home appliances was mainly international OEM production, with few independent brands." Xu Jianfeng said, firstly, Cixi was not well-known at that time, and secondly, the price was low, so it could only rely on comparative competition to win.
With the rapid development of the cross-border e-commerce industry, foreign trade of small household appliances is facing new opportunities.
Driven by the "going overseas trend", Cixi's pace of independent innovation has gradually accelerated, and it has begun to transform from "OEM" to "Creating a brand".
Since last year, Cixi Enterprises has presided over the formulation and revision of 7 national standards and participated in the formulation and revision of 75 national standards, setting a record high.
Among them, there are two Cixi small household appliance companies that preside over the formulation and revision of national standards.
Data map.
Source: Released by Cixi
According to the relevant person in charge of the Cixi Economic and Information Bureau, Cixi currently has 22 products certified with the "Made in Zhejiang" label, and has formulated 21 standards for "Made in Zhejiang" or above.
Products are innovating, and so are services.
Cixi focuses on the "No. 1 Development Project" of digital economy innovation and quality improvement, actively explores new development models of "product intelligence, manufacturing digitization and service platformization", and launches a digital transformation plan for small and medium-sized enterprises in the home appliance industry. As a demonstration leader, Porter Technology introduces excellent intelligent manufacturing engineering service entities such as Tenneng Intelligent and Guangshen Technology through the "new engineering model" of "leading the implementation of general contracting" to innovate Ningbo's "1+1+N+X" ecological model Digital Intelligence "Cixi Small Home Appliances Paradigm".
Today, "Zhuoli" has become the "global champion" with the highest output in the field of electric irons; 1 out of every 3 hair dryers in the world is produced by "Yueli"; 7 out of 10 Chinese households use "Bull" for wall switches and sockets; Bao Industrial Electrical Appliances won the national individual championship and the title of National Specialized “Little Giant”.
These brands are all from Cixi.
"Cixi small home appliances have always maintained independent innovation in the past two decades of development and accumulation. Its product quality and design are constantly improving, and its cost-effectiveness advantage is particularly prominent." Xu Jianfeng said.
Industrial upgrading encounters "growing pains"
At present, the international situation is complex and ever-changing, geopolitical risks continue, and as market competition continues to intensify, Cixi enterprises, whose main body is foreign trade exports, are also facing new challenges.
The relevant person in charge of the Cixi Economic and Information Bureau pointed out that Cixi's small household appliance industry currently has four major pain points: "more foreign trade and less domestic trade", "strong real economy and weak digital economy", "more manufacturing and less R&D innovation", "strong industrial supporting facilities and weak independent brands" The shortcomings of the lack of big brands driven by hundreds of billions of leading enterprises, the lack of core technologies, and the lack of modern management are very obvious. Cixi's industrial upgrading faces "growing pains" such as big but not strong, too many but not strong, and low development quality and efficiency.
Facing new challenges, how does Cixi “solve the problem”?
"Cixi currently has many small home appliance manufacturers, and its industrial scale and R&D capabilities need to be continuously improved." Xu Jianfeng believes that if they want to build international brands, Cixi small home appliance companies need to focus on the word "innovation."
One is product innovation.
Product production needs to be market-oriented, constantly close to the market, and then improve product performance.
The second is technological innovation.
From a "small family workshop" to a "small home appliance capital" with a complete industrial chain step by step, it is necessary to improve the level of corporate research and development, enrich talents, and promote product upgrades through technological innovation.
The third is business model innovation.
With the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, more attention should be paid to international cooperation and online and offline industry integration in business models.
The Cixi Municipal Government has also made corresponding arrangements.
In 2023, Cixi comprehensively launched the construction of a global smart home appliance innovation center and officially issued the "Cixi City Action Plan for Building a Global Smart Home Appliance Innovation Center (2023-2025)", taking a new path of high-quality development and launching the implementation of innovation capacity improvement, brand quality improvement, Eight major projects include cultivating enterprise echelons, improving public service capabilities, expanding marketing channels, effective investment in the industrial chain, cultivating "new e-commerce" enterprises, and "emptying cages and changing birds" industrial governance.
It is expected that by 2025, the industrial output value of Cixi's home appliance industry will reach more than 120 billion yuan, becoming an advanced manufacturing demonstration industry cluster in Zhejiang Province.