Open the shopping platform, search for "wear nails", and browse the latest new products...... Xiao Zhou, a Suzhou girl who plans to start a side business, began to pay attention to the business of hand-wearing nails. Compared with hundreds of handmade nail art "assassins", she feels that the convenient and novel replacement product - wearing nails has more room for profit.
Deeply related to this is a place name - Donghai, the county town of northern Jiangsu, which is breaking into the field of vision of young women like Xiao Zhou.
Donghai County, the "crystal capital" famous for its crystals, has been looking sideways at this beauty product for many years, and it seems that it has not spread. However, from the perspective of industrial performance, there are 400,000 pairs of handmade hand-worn nails in the county, and the annual output will exceed 100 million pairs in 2023. It can be seen that Donghai, which accounts for more than 70% of the country's total output, has become one of the largest handmade nail markets in the country.
The shiny armor and the name of "Jingdu" complement each other, why did Donghai, a small county in northern Jiangsu, "fingertips" nuggets in the past?
In the Jingcheng nail salon, more than one million pairs of handmade nail products are neatly placed. Photo by People's Daily Zhang Hantian
50,000 nail technicians paint the "blue ocean"
How can a small wearing armor become the second "signboard" of the East China Sea? This is inseparable from the "family background" of the East China Sea - crystal.
In 2019, with the "crystal light" scattering of the crystal industry, many small businesses with nail decoration gradually emerged in the East China Sea, and finally gradually moved closer to the subdivision of the nail industry.
On the shelves, there are many types of handmade nails that are crystal and fashionable, and female customers come one after another to pick and buy. Such a scene was staged in Jingcheng's nail art shop, and the manager Qi Dayin was no longer surprised.
Qi Dayin has been in the wearable nail industry for three years, and the sales model of customers buying at home or placing orders wholesale online has gradually stabilized in Jingcheng Nail Arts, forming tens of thousands of customers. "At the end of the day, each distributor has to process dozens of orders, and they have to be busy. He said.
A small shop, wearing 30,000 pairs of nails per day, and daily sales of 300,000 yuan, Jingcheng nail art is not unique in Donghai. According to statistics, there are hundreds of enterprises engaged in hand-wearing armor in Donghai County. There are 50,000 nail technicians who are proficient in the art of painting, and there are more than 200 nail design and production teams.
Although a pair of handmade armor is small, there are many aspects involved: the type of accessories, the composition of the color gel, and the handmade...... The most basic, and most important, is just a milky white deck.
Coming to the outskirts of the county, Pan Dongfang, the person in charge of production and sales of Shuangdian Town Womei Commodity Co., Ltd., picked up a plate of armor from the assembly line and displayed it, with a smooth and light texture and uniform thickness. Beside him, eight mechanical grippers of injection molding machines move back and forth to transport groups of acrylic decks from the injection molding machines to the assembly platform.
"The key to the production of this kind of nail is to control the thin thickness at both ends, the better the quality, the brighter and textured the painted nail will be. Pan Dongfang said that at the beginning of exploring this process, the bad samples made by the factory can cover the floor of a hut, and after the technology is mature, the loss rate can be controlled within 5 thousandths. Today, the company's "Street Encounter" brand armor has become a raw material supply brand that accounts for a large proportion of the wearable nail industry.
From raw material production to product design, quantitative production to wholesale and retail, Donghai has completed the industrial chain of the whole link of the handmade nail industry. The army of nail technicians with a scale of more than 50,000 people has gathered a new industrial "blue ocean" from the bottom up.
The "Street Encounter" brand armor of Womei daily necessities is being produced. Photo by People's Daily Zhang Hantian
The "Bao Ma" in northern Jiangsu grasps the aesthetic trend
Polishing off the burrs at the corners, evenly coating the color glue, and picking up the crystalline accessories with small tweezers, caulking, reinforcing and layering...... In more than 20 minutes, Feng Tingting completed the production of a pair of "cat's eye" wearing armor.
One or two months of training, so that "Xiaobai" can also become a journeyman. The characteristics of hand-worn nails are easy to make, so that many "Bao Ma" have a second spring in their careers. 36-year-old Feng Tingting is one of them.
Feng Tingting and her lover Chen Jian from Baitabu Town are a group of "pioneers" in the nail industry in Donghai. The dining table at home is also the workbench of her skillful skills.
In the first two years, the "Niangniang Armor", which became popular because of the drama, became popular, and Feng Tingting designed a pair of wearing armor of the same style, and sales skyrocketed. This led them to pay attention to the design and creation of new products, and through social media such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, Feng Tingting designed many unique nail products. "Quality and aesthetics are indispensable, and more attention is paid to novelty and popularity" has become the "business experience" of the two, Chen Jian is responsible for external sales, Feng Tingting is responsible for pattern design, and "Weimu", a mom-and-pop shop, has gradually become famous.
"'Little Snake' sold well last year, and 'Longan' sold well at the beginning of the year. They are all works that match the zodiac. Feng Tingting picked up two proud works and said, "Find a better looking and fashionable product, copy it first, and then make improvements." ”
In the production studio of "Weimu" nail art, there are more than 30 middle-aged left-behind female nail technicians who are about the same age as Feng Tingting. According to reports, the armor makers in the team can make nearly 40 pairs a day on average. "Piecework salary, six or seven thousand yuan per month is the norm, and some employees can even earn more than 10,000 yuan a month. Chen Jian said.
In the early years, men went out to work, and a large number of women stayed in villages and towns. The objective needs of low production threshold and beauty bias towards women's aesthetics have made women who revolve around the pot table begin to engage in the wearable nail industry and find their own career second spring. According to statistics, around 2020, armor-wearing shops of different sizes in Baitabu Town have sprung up like "mushrooms after a rain", and the number has grown explosively, reaching more than 4,000 at most.
"The closer you are to the hands of ordinary people, the more convenient it is to carry goods. Xiao Wang and Xiao Su from the "Weimu" nail art purchase live broadcast attracted a large number of female fans with the setting of "sister" and "aunt", after the two failed to start a business, they chose to return to their hometown to join the "army" of the wearable nail industry, "Because of the low price of the product, consumers are willing to place an order, they hope to cooperate with the daily wear, and many fans have hoarded hundreds."
In the tide of the times, it is easy for the "mothers" of the East China Sea to make money.
In a community in Donghai, a female worker inspects product packaging. Photo by People's Daily Zhang Hantian
The "second business card" is on the way to progress
Driving to Donghai County, unlike the crystal merchants that abound, on the street, hand-worn nail shops still need to be carefully searched, and the "small and scattered" industrial situation of the hand-worn nail industry can be seen.
"The wearable nail industry and the crystal industry have similar characteristics and are gradually facing the same problems. In the view of Li Zheng, secretary general of Donghai County Wearable Nail Association and deputy general manager of Shoujing Commercial Management Company of Jiangsu Donghai Crystal Industry Development Group, the five-year development of Donghai wearable nail industry with great potential is gradually showing key problems such as low industrial agglomeration efficiency, imperfect sales system, and lack of product standards.
"Although there are many enterprises, most of them are wholesale OEM, and the vast majority of enterprises focus on production and sales. A practitioner in the wearable nail industry in Donghai said frankly, "In recent years, in order to reduce cost losses, some factories have also chosen to flow poor quality products to the market in the process of processing, which has also damaged the overall reputation of Donghai's industry." ”
In the face of "small and scattered", Donghai chose to "huddle together for warmth". On December 29, 2023, with the support of the Donghai County Bureau of Commerce, led by the Donghai Crystal Industry Development Group, including more than 50 Donghai County wearer industry enterprises, the Donghai County Wearable Nail Industry Association was officially established.
People's Daily Online learned that in the three-year planning plan of the association as a whole, the Donghai wearable nail industry strives to exceed 300 million pairs of wearable nails in the county by the end of 2026, with sales exceeding 80 billion yuan, developing more than 20 enterprises above the designated size, and achieving more than 500 million yuan in taxes.
By June 2024, Donghai will build a whole industry chain base including consumables such as nail polish and nail tablets, handmade production, and exhibition and sales experience centers, guide no less than 50 wearable nail sales enterprises to settle in, and form the establishment of industrial clusters, the establishment and improvement of quality standards, and the strengthening of intellectual property protection.
In the future, Donghai will also follow the crystal industry model to create wearable armor industry conferences, exhibitions and design competitions and other activities to promote cooperation and resource sharing between enterprises and promote industrial upgrading.
"We are very confident that handmade armor will become a 100 billion industry in the East China Sea. Li Zheng said.