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The whole nine yards from soup to nuts
November 13, 2009, Friday
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ONLINE entrepreneurs in Hangzhou have found a new home on Qingjiang Road offering 20 floors for buyers and sellers. Xu Wenwen checks it out. Taobao sellers of wholesale and retail goods in Hangzhou are moving into a 20-story building, Siji Xingzuo (Four Seasons Star), which also features a wholesale fabric market.
Siji Xingzuo used to be an office building but its location on Qingjiang Road opposite the long-standing Sijiqing Clothing Wholesale Market makes it ideal as Taobao dealers' new home.
Taobao is China's biggest online shopping center.
Siji Xingzuo is well laid out and organized. Each floor has 18 bright rooms that are clearly marked by number. From the third floor up, it's mostly wholesale clothing though there are also commodities, as in other wholesale markets.
It houses not only Taobao dealers, but others who were there previously.
The earlier dealers in Siji Xingzuo were inclined to purchase from Sijiqing market across the street, but Taobao folks prefer to get goods right there in the new building.
Xiang Hua is a fresh Taobao seller who started his business half a year ago and chose Siji Xingzuo as an "inbound channel."
"Sijiqing is old, and its small booths appear messy, but Siji Xingzuo is more regular. Its clean and bright room with numbers are easily found," he says.
Purchasers shuttle and scout goods in booths, one by one, dragging huge black plastic bags full of goods between the 20th and 3rd floors.
For efficiency, deals are standardized.
Buyers only need to identify the desired goods' model number, size, color and quantity. Then sellers check the goods in stock and sell them.
A deal can be done in a couple of minutes, and there's not much bargaining as pricing is transparent.
The best-running store can sell 170 orders in one day, for both wholesale and Taobao.
Zou Yuqi, who runs Shop 810, moved to the building in October last year to deal with online shopping while also running a retail clothing store.
But she decided to transform her retail business to a wholesale-plus-online store since she finds that large and rapid online consignments required too much time and energy. Retail wasn't worth it, she says.
"The retail market became saturated after long competition, but the online market is still large," Zou says. "Now I can wholesale goods for more profit and also do retail on my Taobao shop, so even customers in rural areas can buy my products."
Within one year, the store selling men's fashions gained a four-diamond credit rating.
The building's tenants share resources.
If one's products are not immediately in stock, they usually can be purchased quickly from other tenants when an order is placed.
To find out which store has new styles and which has the most stock, the building's BBS is available to all dealers.
"It's like I run one store, but own all the goods of the building," says Zou.
Address: 138 Qingjiang Rd, Shangcheng District
How to get there: Buses 14, 29, 34, 39, 106, 352, 351, 517, 515, 525, 818 to Zongguantang Stop
Siji Xingzuo used to be an office building but its location on Qingjiang Road opposite the long-standing Sijiqing Clothing Wholesale Market makes it ideal as Taobao dealers' new home.
Taobao is China's biggest online shopping center.
Siji Xingzuo is well laid out and organized. Each floor has 18 bright rooms that are clearly marked by number. From the third floor up, it's mostly wholesale clothing though there are also commodities, as in other wholesale markets.
It houses not only Taobao dealers, but others who were there previously.
The earlier dealers in Siji Xingzuo were inclined to purchase from Sijiqing market across the street, but Taobao folks prefer to get goods right there in the new building.
Xiang Hua is a fresh Taobao seller who started his business half a year ago and chose Siji Xingzuo as an "inbound channel."
"Sijiqing is old, and its small booths appear messy, but Siji Xingzuo is more regular. Its clean and bright room with numbers are easily found," he says.
Purchasers shuttle and scout goods in booths, one by one, dragging huge black plastic bags full of goods between the 20th and 3rd floors.
For efficiency, deals are standardized.
Buyers only need to identify the desired goods' model number, size, color and quantity. Then sellers check the goods in stock and sell them.
A deal can be done in a couple of minutes, and there's not much bargaining as pricing is transparent.
The best-running store can sell 170 orders in one day, for both wholesale and Taobao.
Zou Yuqi, who runs Shop 810, moved to the building in October last year to deal with online shopping while also running a retail clothing store.
But she decided to transform her retail business to a wholesale-plus-online store since she finds that large and rapid online consignments required too much time and energy. Retail wasn't worth it, she says.
"The retail market became saturated after long competition, but the online market is still large," Zou says. "Now I can wholesale goods for more profit and also do retail on my Taobao shop, so even customers in rural areas can buy my products."
Within one year, the store selling men's fashions gained a four-diamond credit rating.
The building's tenants share resources.
If one's products are not immediately in stock, they usually can be purchased quickly from other tenants when an order is placed.
To find out which store has new styles and which has the most stock, the building's BBS is available to all dealers.
"It's like I run one store, but own all the goods of the building," says Zou.
Address: 138 Qingjiang Rd, Shangcheng District
How to get there: Buses 14, 29, 34, 39, 106, 352, 351, 517, 515, 525, 818 to Zongguantang Stop
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