When it comes to clusters of clothing e-commerce industries, many people may first think of coastal areas. In fact, there is also a city in the inland of our country where the clothing e-commerce industry has emerged as a powerful force in recent years. It has sold over 600 million pieces of clothing and achieved a transaction volume of over 50 billion yuan in a year. This city is Tianmen, Hubei Province. Let's take a look at what Tianmen has relied on behind a series of figures to forge a high-quality development path for clothing e-commerce.

How busy can one be selling clothes? In the warehouse of this leading clothing e-commerce enterprise in Tianmen, the reporter saw that workers were constantly sorting the packages that were about to be dispatched. Trucks were queuing up outside the door, and as soon as a truck was full, it would be dispatched immediately.

The delivery vehicles are jammed up to the door, and there are so many packages to be sent that there is no place to put them. This is the daily routine that Xiong Feixiang has to face every day now. It's hard to imagine that this current industry leader was actually just a small clothing workshop in Guangzhou that survived by "processing with supplied materials" just a few years ago. Nowadays, the enterprise has been expanding continuously. It has not only provided employment for over 3,000 local people, but also started the construction of a cross-border e-commerce base this year, and planned a smart manufacturing center and a design and research and development base.

Xiong Feixiang, the chairman of Hubei Laiyi Tiao Clothing Co., LTD., said: "Nowadays, the development of clothing e-commerce is extremely fast, especially in Tianmen. It basically doubles every year." We also want to catch up as soon as possible and concentrate all the production resources from the upstream and downstream together.

During the interview, the reporter found that in Tianmen, it is not a single enterprise that is doing a booming business, but the entire industry. In 2021, the transaction volume of clothing e-commerce in Tianmen was only 7 billion yuan. By 2024, this figure had already reached 51.3 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 92%.

You Li, the person in charge of China (Tianmen) Clothing E-commerce Mall, said: "At the very beginning, the first batch achieved full recruitment within less than half a year. At that time, we already felt that it was very fast." It was unexpected that 36 commercial buildings and factories were launched last year. In less than three months, the full park recruitment work was successfully achieved. This year, we built six factory buildings and they were all filled up very quickly. However, more than 20 enterprises said they "couldn't get any".

Nowadays, while the clothing enterprises in Tianmen are busy seizing the market and factory buildings, they have also quietly moved their "competition field" into the production lines. At this clothing manufacturing enterprise, the reporter saw that with the help of AI algorithms, the work that designers used to spend several weeks has now been shortened to half an hour. Four people can design 70 to 80 new styles of clothing in a day. In the workshop, the Internet of Things chips installed on the clothes hangers transmit over 200 production parameters to the cloud. The digital twin system builds a "mirror factory", and AI algorithms can quickly break down different customer demands into production line instructions.

Chen Jianbo, the production supervisor of Tianmen Yongjia Clothing Company, said: "Previously, it might take two or three days to produce 1,000 pieces of clothing. Now, 1,000 pieces of clothing can be finished in just two hours after being hung up in the morning."

In the first half of this year, the GDP growth rate of Tianmen region reached 7.2%, ranking third in Hubei Province. Among them, the online transaction volume of the clothing e-commerce industry has exceeded 30 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of more than 30%. According to the plan, Tianmen will aim for an average annual growth rate of over 10% in the next five years. By 2030, the transaction volume of clothing e-commerce will exceed 100 billion yuan, and the proportion of cross-border e-commerce will increase to over 40%.

Seize the opportunity of industrial transfer, integrate industrial resources and develop in clusters

During the interview, the reporter learned that Tianmen has a unique "advantage" in developing the clothing e-commerce industry, which is the talent in the industry.

In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people from Tianmen moved south to engage in the garment industry. In recent years, with the rise of cross-border e-commerce and e-commerce live streaming, many people have chosen to return to Tianmen to start businesses or seek employment. What changes did their return to Tianmen bring to the local clothing e-commerce industry?

When the reporter met Fervin in the Tianmen Garment Industrial Park, he was riding an electric balance scooter back and forth among the shelves in the warehouse.

It was not only the area of the warehouse that grew rapidly. In just four years, Feiwen expanded the enterprise from a dozen people to 1,500, and the output value scale increased a hundredfold from tens of millions to billions.

Fervin said that the reason why his dream could come true was entirely due to Tianmen's acute seizing of the opportunity of industrial transfer a few years ago. When he was planning to return, China's garment industry was undergoing a major migration from the coastal areas to the inland regions. Enterprises in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu and other places were facing problems such as rising costs and difficulties in recruitment, and a large number of garment workers from Hubei Province were confronted with the issue of returning home. At that time, Tianmen, with a "chain thinking" approach, resolutely invested 8 billion yuan to build a chemical fiber textile industrial park, introducing 15 upstream and downstream enterprises including polymer slicing, spinning and weaving. Meanwhile, a total of 2.36 billion yuan has been invested to improve the infrastructure for cross-border e-commerce, and 17 specialized policies for the textile and garment industry have been successively introduced.

Cheng Meng, the general manager of Tianmen Qinyi Industrial Development Co., LTD., said: "We have provided very strong support for young people who return to their hometowns to start businesses. For instance, for those who first come back, there are rent reductions for the venues. Once the logistics volume reaches a certain level, there are rent subsidies for logistics."

While expanding its industrial scale, Tianmen has also integrated industrial resources and started to develop in clusters. It has launched a regional public brand for clothing e-commerce - "Tianmen Yishang", promoting the clothing e-commerce industry to move towards high-end and brand-oriented development. It provides financial subsidies to enterprises that are authorized and use brand logos as required and open "Tianmen Yishang" brand stores. Now, within just four months of operation, the "Tianmen Yishang" supply chain information platform has attracted over 25,000 users, certified more than 4,000 business entities, completed over 800 supply and demand order matches, and facilitated transaction amounts exceeding 40 million yuan.

Fei Wen, the general manager of Tianmen Qidian Supply Chain Management Co., LTD., said: "After coming back in recent years, I have clearly felt that doing the same thing here in Tianmen is twice as effective with half the effort." It is because of the government's guidance and support for the industry, the guarantee of elements, and the technical talents of the industry that Tianmen's industries have experienced explosive growth in the past two years.

Nowadays, with more and more young people like Fei Wen and Cheng Meng returning to their hometowns to start businesses, the Tianmen clothing e-commerce industry has not only established a firm foothold in the domestic market but also set its sights on the global market. Overseas warehouses in ASEAN and North America have been put into use one after another. Consumers can now receive their Tianmen clothing orders on cross-border e-commerce platforms as soon as the next day.

The integrated development of industry, city and people makes cities more vibrant

In just a few years, clothing e-commerce has grown into a phenomenon-level industry in Tianmen, Hubei Province, creating the "Tianmen phenomenon" where one out of every three households is engaged in the clothing industry.

During the interviews, the reporter found that the development of the city through industry and the attraction of people through the city, the "tap-tap" sound of sewing machines coming from the garment production workshops is now becoming a new rhythm of vitality in Tianmen.

Every day, when night falls, the Tianmen Beihu Night Market opens on time. Over 300 stalls light up their neon signs one after another, with the aroma wafting through the air and the cries of vendors rising and falling. Walking through it, the reporter noticed a phenomenon that was even more eye-catching than that of the night market: there were an exceptionally large number of young parents moving around, along with quite a few families with two or even three children.

Due to the thriving industries, the permanent resident population of Tianmen has achieved net growth for two consecutive years. Last year, the number of births in Tianmen increased by 17% year-on-year, marking the first time in eight years that the population had turned from a decline to an increase. In the first half of this year, there were 3,756 newborns, an increase of 5.6% year-on-year, making Tianmen one of the cities in the country where the birth rate has continued to rise significantly. More and more young people returning to their hometowns have brought more vitality to this city.

CCTV reporter Jin Xiaoxi: In Tianmen, it's not only the Beihu Night Market that's bustling at night, but also the live-streaming rooms for clothing e-commerce in the industrial park. At this very moment, the eight rooms behind me have simultaneously started online live streaming, with an average of over 6,000 pieces of clothing sold every day.

The live streaming room is very popular, and more and more people are signing up for the learning live stream. Just downstairs from the live streaming room, dozens of trainees in the training classroom are following the instructor to learn courses such as e-commerce operation and brand promotion.

To address the labor shortage in the industry, Tianmen has arranged and implemented the "1,000-Person Training Program for Clothing E-commerce", training nearly 3,000 professionals in fields such as live-streaming hosts, marketing, design, and sewing processing every year. At present, the number of local clothing e-commerce practitioners has reached 160,000.

Today, Tianmen's clothing e-commerce industry has established a full-chain industrial system covering "weaving, fabric and accessories, garment processing, e-commerce marketing, and cross-border logistics", becoming a powerful engine for the city's continuous upward leap. Driven by the vigorous development of industries, the growth rate of six core indicators including disposable income of residents in Tianmen ranks first in Hubei Province.

Xing Wei, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that it can be summarized as the "Tianmen Model". Its most prominent feature is that industries are more dynamic, cities are more dynamic, and talents are more dynamic. The integrated development of industry, city and people brings about a more dynamic development of the entire city.