Central China city threading up success

From an epoch when 300,000 garment workers left their hometowns in search of opportunities in South China, to today's wave of skilled natives returning home to start businesses, Tianmen in Hubei province has rapidly risen as an unexpected contender in the apparel e-commerce industry.

"Last year we fulfilled 100,000 online orders a day and generated 1.3 billion yuan ($180 million) in sales. With the launch of our new base this year, we are targeting 2 billion yuan," said Xiong Feixiang, chairman of Hubei Laiyitiao Garment Co Ltd.

Now a major industry leader, the company was only a small workshop reliant on contract manufacturing just a few years ago.

"My parents moved to Guangzhou in Guangdong province in the 1990s to do OEM garment processing. Back then we were simply sewing clothes for others. Margins were thin, and orders were unstable," Xiong recalled.

After taking over the family business in 2016, Xiong began building his own brand and turning to online platforms for sales. Although orders grew quickly, high rental and logistics costs in coastal regions continued to constrain the company, he said.

"I heard that my hometown Tianmen was strongly supporting apparel e-commerce, offering rentfree factories and solutions for logistics and labor. That triggered my idea of returning," Xiong said. In 2019, he closed the Guangzhou facility and moved all warehousing, logistics and production to Tianmen, a move that reduced production costs by 30 percent and saved more than 10 million yuan in rent over the past several years.

With lower costs, the company rapidly expanded. In April this year, Laiyitiao broke ground on a new cross-border e-commerce base featuring an intelligent manufacturing center and design facilities, pushing the company further up the value chain.

Xiong's experience reflects a broader trend of Tianmen natives returning home for opportunities in the fast growing apparel e-commerce sector. To date, the county-level-city has more than 7,000 textile and apparel-related businesses and over 13,000 e-commerce stores registered on major platforms, its commerce bureau data showed.

"Tianmen's garment industry dates back to the 1980s, when over 400,000 locals ventured elsewhere to work in the sector. Among residents aged 30 to 40, around 80 percent of women and 20 percent of men possessed garment-making skills at that time, giving rise to the reputation of its garment workers," said Huang Caiting, director of the city's apparel e-commerce industry development office.

In recent years, the restructuring of coastal industries and Tianmen's policy support for logistics, tax reductions, discounted entrepreneurship loans and rent support have encouraged a new generation of garment entrepreneurs to return.

The influx has, in turn, driven the development of packaging, logistics, design and other related services. More than 50,000 jobs have been created, with over 4,000 returning-home market entities and 160,000 returning workers reshaping the local industry landscape — a phenomenon locals describe as "one in every three households engaged in the apparel sector", the official said.

Riding the rise of the digital economy, the city now positions apparel e-commerce as a breakthrough point for industrial transformation. Between 2021 and 2024, its apparel e-commerce transaction volume surged from 7 billion yuan to 50 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 58 percent, and sales are expected to exceed 70 billion yuan this year, according to data from Tianmen's commerce bureau.

"By building a comprehensive industrial supply chain platform, Tianmen has formed a full-process ecosystem covering fabric production, accessories, garment processing, online marketing and cross-border logistics," Huang said.

"From fabrics to production and processing, then to livestreaming as well as smart factories and cloud warehouses, the entire apparel supply chain is integrated here, enabling one-stop services for design, manufacturing, sales, branding and talent development," said Liu Jianyong, general manager of Tianmen Yuezi Clothing Co Ltd.

With an annual output value of more than 500 million yuan, Yuezi is currently Tianmen's largest cross-border apparel supply chain enterprise by output, with its products exported to the United States, Germany, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere.

"Our success is largely due to the development model of 'headquarters in the city, operations in the industrial park, and workshops in villages'," Liu said, adding that the headquarters manages design, quality control and urgent orders, while most production is handled by satellite factories.

"We adopt a 'small-batch, quick-response' model. Based on real-time livestreamed sales data, we can adjust production plans and use a digital order management system to break garments into standardized components — such as collars and cuffs — which are produced by specialized factories and home workshops before final assembly."

This has shortened the production cycle of their bestsellers by 40 percent and enables fast responses to global demand, Liu added.