The eighth International Women’s Apparel and Fashion Accessories Trade Fair at ShanghaiMart concluded its run this month amid manufacturer concerns about the changing Chinese and global marketplaces.
“Foreign companies come to China just looking for the cheapest product they can find, and expect unreasonably low pricing,” said Darren Cao, deputy general manager of Meisong International. “The currency revaluation is making China expensive, though, and there is too much competition and unhealthy competition among producers.”
The twice-yearly fair ran March 7 to 9 and was organized by ShanghaiMart, China Fashion Weekly and the Dallas Market Center. It featured a total of 165 exhibitors and attracted 5,500 visitors. The fair opened with a ready-to-wear show entitled “Styles From Fashion Valley” and featured several Chinese designers and brands with studios at ShanghaiMart, including Chen Wen, Luo Nan, Zhang Lingli and Wu Xuekai.
The fair’s opening day also spotlighted a standing-room-only sourcing presentation by Crystal Zhang of Bestseller, the parent of popular brands Vera Moda and Jack & Jones, which have 280 and 250 shops in China, respectively. Other presentations during the fair consisted of a second sourcing talk, made by Arcadia, and a discussion of Japanese apparel and accessories trends by Shanghai Charming & Co.
Charming, a producer of belts and scarves, about 50 percent for export, expressed satisfaction with the fair, which it was attending for the first time. “Everything was good,” said managing director Bian Jiang, “and it’s a very professional show, so the customers are very professional, and the communications are excellent.” Bian added that the new clients met were about 70 percent from domestic companies. “We’ll definitely come next time.”
Qiu Guojin, director of Lucky Textiles, offered more measured praise for the event, where he met about 50 new customers. “It’s OK….The marketing here is good, but the service is not good, and the decoration and product consistency need work.”
Lucky, a 21-year-old manufacturer that branched into apparel three years ago, produces entirely for export, mostly to Europe and Japan. “We do some U.S. business, only it’s limited by tariffs, but that should get better next year,” Qiu said.
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The company also attends the Düsseldorf fair, and “we planned to go to Las Vegas also, but heard it was not very good in terms of the quality of buyers,” Qiu said, citing the Shanghai Fair’s location as among its selling points. “Our company is in Shanghai and we met a lot of customers in Shanghai, whereas when we went to Hong Kong Fashion Week, we didn’t meet many Shanghai-based buyers. Even international buyers now mostly have Shanghai offices, and that makes it very convenient for everyone.”
Meisong’s Cao said, “It’s our second time here, and the fair is so-so. The visitors are not as professional as I’d expected, we only met five or six.” Meisong, an apparel producer from Nanjing in Jiangsu Province, is six years old, has a staff of 900 and an annual turnover of $10 million. It produces entirely for export, mostly to Canada, Germany and Finland.
He blamed the larger business environment as much as the organizers for his disappointment.
“DMC is a partner in this, so they should be responsible for scanning visitors better,” he said. “Last year we met a visitor who was from a small company in Los Angeles, and they ordered and confirmed with us, then canceled after it was already made.”
The event’s next installment, the 2007 China International Apparel Trade Fair, will run Sept. 18 to 20 at ShanghaiMart.