See The New Trend Of "Warm Economy" From The Down Jacket In Pinghu, Zhejiang

In the colder days, Zhejiang Pinghu · China Garment City (hereinafter referred to as "Garment City"), the largest single category down garment professional market in China, is very busy. More than 2000 stalls are full of down jackets, and customers carry large bags and small bundles to look around at their favorite goods.

"Pinghu has one of the 100 pieces of clothing in the world." Jiaxing Pinghu down industry started in the 1980s, and now has more than 1000 down jacket upstream and downstream associated enterprises. According to the statistics of relevant departments, from January to November 2024, Pinghu will ship nearly 200 million pieces of down jackets.

Recently, China's "warm economy" is warming up, and warm clothing is welcome to the peak sales season. Pinghu down jacket sales continued to rise, with more than 70000 customers entering the clothing city every day, and product quality became the core concern.

In September 2024, the "Fashion Pinghu" regional brand premiere and the event site of the 2025 autumn and winter down clothing fashion trend release. Picture provided by the Publicity Department of Pinghu Municipal Party Committee

"Can you show me the quality inspection report? Is it real down?" Facing the customer's question, Zhong Jie, a clothing city merchant, put up a sign at the door of the store that said, "We only make down jackets with 90% down".

Zhong Jie has been operating down jacket business here for 10 years. "To make a high-quality down jacket, the down content, production process, fabric, and hardware accessories are all knowledge." He said in an interview that in the process of industry "shuffling", good quality must be linked to cost, and "roll price" will not work.

In the opinion of Wu Xuequan, the person in charge of Costume City, customers are more cautious in placing orders, which helps to put an end to the phenomenon of "bad money drives out good money" and brings opportunities to Pinghu Down.

"The Garment City was built in 2011. Over the years, we have focused on quality supervision, irregularly sampled merchants, and faced with" zero tolerance "of dishonest business practices, the quality of down jacket products and the rate of original design have significantly improved." Wu Xuequan believes that product quality is subject to public opinion supervision, which can force the healthy growth of the down industry.

Relevant industry reports predict that the market size of China's down jacket will exceed 227 billion yuan in 2024, with a year-on-year growth of more than 15%. Under the diversified competition pattern, the consumption scene of down jacket is subdivided. Influenced by outdoor sports in winter and the rise of ice and snow economy, the sales of wind proof, waterproof, fashionable and portable functional down jacket have increased significantly.

In December 2024, customers will buy down jackets in the clothing city. Photographed by Wang Yuhu

"I want to choose a down jacket with strong warmth retention, light and easy to carry, and wear it when traveling in the north at the end of the year." Zhu Congwen, a female student after "00", came to Pinghu specially to buy it. Behind him, down jackets, down jackets and down tooling coats are hung all over the shelves, with distinctive styles of "mountain system" and tooling.

"New thermal insulation materials, such as graphene and aerogel, have been widely used in the down jacket industry, and new demand is leading the supply side upgrading trend of scientific research and development, brand innovation, etc." Chen Huan, director of the Publicity and Promotion Department of Pinghu Fashion Culture Creative Park, said that Pinghu down takes branding strategy as the key to win reputation, and the trade rate of its own brand exceeds 40%.

In order to catch up with the consumption boom, most down jacket businesses in Pinghu are equipped with designer teams. "In combination with fashion trends and market research, a stall can produce hundreds of new styles of down jackets every year." Ke Xiaolei, a clothing store merchant, said that recently the store has begun to prepare for the 2025 winter new style.

(Source: China News Network)