Zhou Xiaoguang knows a thing or two about surviving hard times. As a girl of 17, she left her poor Chinese village to make a living as a peddler. She sold embroidery hoops,needles and patterns, hefting a 100-kilogram sack as she moved by train from town to town.
Today she is a millionaire owning the world's biggest maker of costume jewelry. Her company, Neoglory Holdings Group, employs 4,000 workers in a vast factory complex in this trading hub three-hour drive from Shanghai.
The company is just 14 years old – Zhou Xiaoguang is not inclined to throw in the towel over something as trifling as a global financial crisis. To the contrary, she said the crisis is a chance to snap up faltering rivals, shift into new markets and move up the industry chain from maker of costume jewelry to designer, retailer and marketer.
“It's a difficult time but it's an opportunity too and we are ready to take advantage of it,” said Zhou, dubbed the “queen of costume jewelry” by a Chinese newspaper. “We are the top company in China in this industry.” Zhou said proudly.
That proud attitude is common in Yiwu entrepreneurs these days. China may be going through its sharpest downturn in years, with exports crashing and millions thrown out of work, but many Yiwu companies see it not as a disaster to moan about but an opportunity to seize.
Ms. Zhou is taking advantage of the crisis to sharpen Neoglory's competitive edge. The company started off as a simple low-cost manufacturer, knocking off cheap rings, bracelets and necklaces from copied foreign designs. Now it has 600 of its own stores around China, with plans to open 2,000 more in the next two years.
It has 300 designers producing more than 100 new designs a day. It has teamed up with diva Celine Dion to produce a new line of high-end jewelry. It has formed an alliance with Austria's luxury brand Swarovski to use its crystal in Neoglory products. Once a “hidden champion,” Neoglory now aspires to protect itself from economic ups and downs by becoming an enduring brand of its own, with an air of quality and romance.
With demand for Neoglory jewelry dropped by half in Europe and the United States, the company is shifting its export focus to emerging markets such as Russia, South America and Middle East. Like other Yiwu manufactures, Zhou is also putting more emphasis on the domestic market, which now accounts for 60 per cent of its $340-million annual sales, up from 40 per cent five years ago.
Rather than churning out more jewelry, Zhou said, “We have to improve design, research and processing.” To that end, she travels all over the world for trade shows and visits jewelry factories looking for new ideas. This month she is going to Switzerland. Next month she is off to the United States for the speech about investing and the economy delivered by Warren Buffett.
Zhou said that financial crisis is a chance for Yiwu companies to mature, going beyond the low-tech and labor-intensive model to lift Yiwu into a more thriving market. “Companies with good capabilities and determination can survive and even refine their skills for the better,” she commented in an interview.
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