"Great luck, there is joy in entry" and "there are awards for recommendation", dazzling recruitment advertisements on the side of the road and active recruitment personnel at the entrance of the factory, reminding the hot employment market here.
This is the center road located in Bao'an Shajing Street, Shenzhen, recruiting several e-cigarette factories. On both sides of this road with a total length of about 5.5 kilometers, it was once crowded with 300 or 400 e-cigarette companies, which can be called an important domestic e-cigarette town.
(E-cigarette factory recruitment advertisement on Shajing Street Huang Qiong/Photo)
The market has gone through ups and downs, and now the grand scene is no longer there, but there are still a number of large-scale companies to stick to. An industry news on March 22 made the "circle" restless again.
On the same day, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology publicly solicited opinions on the revision of the "Regulations for the Implementation of the Tobacco Monopoly Law", and proposed to include the e-cigarette industry in the supervision and refer to cigarette management. Industry insiders believe that this may mean that the "national team" will enter the market and will have a huge impact on the e-cigarette market.
Ao Weinuo, secretary general of the e-cigarette industry committee of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, told the first financial reporter, "The news issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is very concerned by everyone, and we are also holding an emergency meeting to discuss." ”
Liu Tao, the boss of Dongguan Maya Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., an e-cigarette manufacturer, said in an interview with reporters, "This has an impact on e-cigarette brands that mainly attack the domestic market in the short term, but it is good in the long run." ”
From June 2014 to enter the industry, the factory moved from the manhole to the current Dongguan, Liu Tao experienced the barbaric growth and vicious competition of the e-cigarette industry, from the perspective of the industry, he believes that the introduction of industry norms will be more conducive to the e-cigarette industry to become bigger and stronger.
In 1985, Shajing was designated as an industrial town by Guangdong Province, and a large amount of foreign capital was injected, and the old Yanxiang and Oyster Township gradually became an industrial town with more than 30 industrial zones and more than 5 million square meters of standard factory buildings. In the past 30 years, the factories in the jurisdiction have been mainly electronics, hardware, clocks, clothing, toy manufacturing and other factories. A few years ago, the e-cigarette industry sprung up here.
Nowadays, the number of domestic e-cigarette related employees exceeds 2 million people, and more than 80% of the smoking equipment factories and more than 70% of the smoke oil factories are located in and around the manhole.
Liu Tao previously did shoe and apparel export business in Xiamen. In the first half of 2014, when I happened to pass by Shenzhen and saw the red-hot scene of the shajing e-cigarette workshop, Liu Tao officially joined the e-cigarette army not long ago.
From finding partners, renting factories, renovating factories, recruiting workers to the first batch of products leaving the factory, Liu Tao only took 3 months. "Because the market for the products I just started with is very mature, I save time in product development." He recalled.
(Huang Qiong/Photo) in the production workshop of an electronic cigarette factory in Shajing)
Talking about the former grand scene of Shajing e-cigarettes, Mr. Chen, a taxi driver who lives in Shajing Songgang, told reporters that in 2010, he worked in the factory, and one day five or six colleagues in the same workshop collectively resigned and went out to set up a factory to produce e-cigarettes. At that time, the manhole was full of small workshops that produced e-cigarettes, and it was easy to buy and assemble accessories on the street of e-cigarettes. Due to the ease of assembly of e-cigarettes, DIY e-cigarettes have also been popular.
Liu Tao introduced that the wholesale price of electronic cigarettes produced in their own factories is about 20 to 25 yuan, and the price of brand e-cigarettes on the market can reach one or two hundred yuan.
According to the data provided by the E-cigarette Industry Committee of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, as of the end of December 2019, there were 907 domestic smoking equipment manufacturers, Shenzhen accounted for 85.7%, followed by Dongguan accounting for 10%, the rest for the Pearl River Delta and all over the country; 86 smoke oil manufacturers, Shenzhen accounted for 72%, followed by Dongguan accounted for 10%, the rest for the Pearl River Delta and all over the country.
In the same period, the number of relevant employees in the upstream and downstream enterprises of the domestic e-cigarette industry exceeded 2 million people, of which the number of e-cigarette production enterprises was about 600,000 people, and the number of related supply chain enterprises such as batteries, hardware, circuit boards, plastics, packaging materials, logistics, testing and other supply chain enterprises exceeded 1 million people; the number of employees engaged in trade and terminal retail physical stores exceeded 400,000 people. There are 28,642 patents for electronic atomization cigarettes in the world, of which 25,006 are in China, accounting for 87.3%.
But now go to the center of the manhole road, there is no acquaintance to lead the way, it is not easy to find the figure of the e-cigarette factory. Most of the small workshop factories were eliminated under the industry reshuffle.
On November 1, 2019, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the Notice on Further Protecting Minors from E-cigarettes, which prohibits the sale of e-cigarettes and the publication of e-cigarette advertisements on online platforms. Now open some online shopping platforms, search for the word "e-cigarette", and can no longer open the page.
This is a blow to most of the small workshops in manholes, which are highly dependent on online sales. Mr. Jiang, an e-cigarette manufacturer from Jiangxi, evacuated Shenzhen at that time.
Liu Tao's factory moved to Dongguan in 2017, reducing the size from 200 to about 20 people. Liu Tao said that it is mainly because of the fierce competition in the market. After moving to Dongguan, although the scale has been reduced, the revenue has remained stable.
This month, Mr. Jiang began to look for small factories in the manhole again, trying to "make a comeback". He told reporters that there are several fellow countrymen who are still developing well here. However, he admitted that the market prospects after the introduction of a series of regulatory policies and industry standards are not clear.