Why are Chinese bags and suitcases so popular overseas?

Since the epidemic, the export volume of our country has dropped sharply, but since this year, the overseas order volume of our country case industry has increased significantly and is even expected to record a new high.

Why are Chinese bags and suitcases so popular overseas? Statistics show that Chinese luggage has accounted for nearly 40% of the global market share, established a large manufacturing advantage. However, at the same time, in the global medium - high-end case market, our country has case "sound quantity" is still not high.

Industry insiders said that the Chinese case industry is highly popular overseas, is the result of a series of factors such as Chinese case industry integration advantage, of course, the market situation is changing from time to time, including the epidemic situation, regional conflict, trade friction and other factors, also worth paying close attention to.

At present, many countries in Europe and the United States have lifted restrictions on tourism and business. With the increase of outdoor activities such as travel, there is more demand for suitcases such as trolley boxes.

It is understood that since this year, the company's pull rod box business has broken orders, orders have been arranged for next year.

Samsonite's results show a bigger rebound in Europe and the US than in Asia. Net sales in North America, Europe and Latin America increased by 51.4%, 159.5% and 151.1% on-year in the first half of 2022, respectively, while net sales in Asia increased by 34% in the first half of 2022.

In this context, exchange rate movements this year, especially the appreciation of the US dollar, have boosted purchasing power and further stimulated demand, Mr Wang said.

At the beginning of January, the dollar was trading at 6.38 yuan. As of Oct. 18, the dollar was trading at 7.2 yuan, a relative appreciation of more than 10 percent.

In addition, due to the increase in labor costs, raw materials, freight and so on, the overall average unit price of luggage and bags increased significantly, which also pushed up the growth of export amount to a certain extent. According to the data, the unit price of bags and similar containers rose from $8,599 per ton by August 2019 to $11,552 per ton by August 2022, an average increase of 34 percent per ton.

Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of IMedia Research, told China Newsweek that, fundamentally speaking, the surge in overseas orders of Chinese luggage and bags is due to its outstanding cost performance advantage.

He said that after 30 or 40 years of development, China's luggage industry has cultivated a complete industrial chain on the basis of the processing of incoming materials, including supporting equipment, talents, raw materials and design ability. It has a good industrial foundation, strong strength, rich experience and strong production capacity. Thanks to China's solid capacity of luggage production and design, Chinese luggage has won a very good reputation in overseas markets. From the monitoring situation, overseas consumers on the quality of Chinese bags and cases, is relatively recognized. At the same time, Chinese bags also have a big enough advantage in price, which is also a big factor that overseas consumers attach great importance to.

On the one hand, the average price of a single bag is less than 20 yuan in some areas.

On the other hand, our country itself quality level is also being improved unceasingly. "In today's overseas market, competition is fierce and overseas customers have very high requirements for quality," Wang told China Newsweek. "If we don't improve the quality of our products, we won't be able to stand on our own and our performance will only get worse and worse."

Li Wenfeng said that it is the result of a series of factors such as our country's case industry integration advantage that our case is highly popular. Of course, the market situation is changing from time to time, including the epidemic situation, regional conflicts, trade friction and other factors, also worth paying close attention to.