One day in 2019, Zhang Da saw an interesting order in the background of Pinduoduo. "Look at the name and contact information, like the order placed by my cousin, but my wearing shop has only opened for the second day, and it should be impossible for her to know." Zhang Da recalled.
Zhang Da, born in 1993, is a native of Donghai County, Jiangsu, which is famous for its crystals. After graduating from high school, Zhang Da went to Beijing to run a crystal business, but he did not make a name for himself and eventually returned to the East China Sea. By chance, he heard that someone was selling wearable armor in Pinduoduo, and the business was good.
▲In recent years, the Donghai wearable nail industry has risen rapidly. (Photo by Ran Zhenghong)
With the mentality of giving it a try, Zhang Da soon opened the first Pinduoduo store, which is the beginning of the story. Later, Zhang Da confirmed his cousin's order. "She said on the other end of the phone that when she searched for 'wearing armor' on Pinduoduo, her product link popped up."
At that time, Zhang Da may not have realized that Donghai was on the eve of an outbreak on Pinduoduo.
After 5 years of running, wearing armor has become a new business card of the East China Sea
The East China Sea, located in the northeast of Jiangsu, accounts for half of the country's natural crystal resources. Over the past 30 years, the East China Sea has gradually become a "crystal capital" integrating production, processing and trade.
Since 2019, the local wearable nail industry has been running wild in Pinduoduo. In addition to the crystal industry, Donghai soon had a new industrial business card.
In 2019, Zhang Da and Gu Hanling, who had been in the nail wearing business for only half a year, caught up with the moment when Pinduoduo broke out.
Their Pinduoduo store was set up in March of that year, but in October, the daily orders for wearing nails on Pinduoduo soared to three or four thousand. During that time, the couple had to take more than 30 employees to get up early and work late every day, and they still couldn't keep up with the speed of rising orders.
In the winter of 2019 in Zhang Da's impression, the couple never had a complete day of rest. "There were too many orders, and the staff couldn't do it at all, and it wasn't until the pre-sale mode was switched to the pre-sale mode that the situation improved slightly."
▲At present, there are more than 200 mothers in Gu Hanling's studio. (Photo by Ran Zhenghong)
At the beginning of the business, Zhang Da and his wife and ten employees could only squeeze into their own guest bedroom of more than 20 square meters; As the number of orders increased, the team moved into the attic of the urban village; In October, when the Pinduoduo store exploded, Zhang Da rented thousands of square meters of factory buildings in one go. Summing up this journey, Zhang Da summed it up as "moving every 3 months".
In contrast, Ma Zhuang, who entered the game a year earlier, enjoyed the Pinduoduo bonus faster. As early as the beginning of 2019, the sales of one of Ma Zhuang's wearable nails began to blow out, and finally became a super single product of Pinduoduo with a total sales of nearly 5 million yuan.
Whenever I think of this item, Ma Zhuang, who was also born in 1993, can't hide his excitement: "We should be the first batch of people on Pinduoduo to make armor into fire, and many people have followed suit." ”
Ma Zhuang, who tasted the dividend, expanded the number of stores to 5 and tried to operate as a store group, which led to the quadruple annual sales of his Pinduoduo store to nearly 20 million yuan.
Summing up the rise of wearing nails, Ma Zhuang believes that Pinduoduo has brought new consumer groups, especially young women. Before putting on nails, this group of people was keen to enjoy time-consuming and expensive nail services in stores. After wearing the armor, they were attracted to the new way of wearing it that was detachable and time-consuming.
"What's more, it often costs two or three hundred yuan to do nail art in the store, and it takes five or six hours to wait, but now it only costs twenty or thirty yuan to wear a pair of nails." Ma Zhuang said.
Zhang Da's Pinduoduo store generates nearly 10 million yuan in annual sales, a considerable proportion of which is contributed by students. "In addition to the fact that the recipient address is all schools, we also found that every time the school starts, Christmas and National Day, the sales of wearing armor have increased significantly, and it is obvious that students are spending."
After the story of Zhang Damen's entrepreneurship spread, Donghai people poured into Pinduoduo, setting off a new round of gold nuggets in wearing armor. Interestingly, many of these new merchants were employees of Zhang Da and others.
Ma Zhuang remembers that around 2021, Pinduoduo's traffic was erupting, and many employees who left their jobs to start their own businesses operated their stores well. "There are at least four or five employees who have learned how to wear nails and have partnered to open a store in Pinduoduo. Many of them have made 500,000 or 600,000 orders in one or two years, and their sales have also reached 10 million yuan. ”
▲ The mothers are busy packing and shipping (Photo by Ran Zhenghong)
Also in 2021, Pan, who felt the outbreak of the nail business, discovered the nail business along the upstream of the industry.
"Nail is the core raw material of wearing nails, and in the past, merchants in the East China Sea purchased from Tianjin, Yiwu and other places, but the price of local production is more advantageous." After calculating this account, Pan Qianfang quickly purchased three pieces of armor production equipment and grew it all the way. After getting orders from Zhang Da, Ma Zhuang and others, he made the output value of the factory two or three hundred million yuan.
After at least two rounds of outbreaks in Pinduoduo in 2019 and 2021, the number of employees and the scale of the industry have jumped to a new level. Today, there are more than 50,000 employees in Donghai wearing nails, and the annual sales of hand-worn nails alone are nearly 3 billion yuan, with an output of more than 100 million pairs. Some of the armor was also sold across the ocean and to Europe and the United States.
Bao Ma has become the main force in the workplace, with a monthly income of eight or nine thousand yuan
Most of the more than 50,000 nail wearers in Donghai are mothers in local villages and towns, and they are now the backbone of the industry.
From the edge of the workplace to the center, local mothers didn't dare to expect it a few years ago; "One is to take care of the family, and the other is that we have not been the main force in the workplace."
Bao Ma's self-perception that she is a "marginal person in the workplace" has also caused many nail wearing businesses to feel a headache.
For example, Liu Haojie,This year is only thirty years old,Entered the e-commerce army of wearing armor at the same time as Ma Zhuang,2019In May,Seeing that the daily orders of Pinduoduo stores have risen to three or four thousand orders,Liu Haojie is struggling to recruit a mother。
"I told them at the time that it was easy to make 40 pairs a day and earn 300 yuan, but they didn't believe it at all, thinking that it would be difficult to do it with such a high salary." In this regard,Liu Haojie is quite emotional。
Compared with Liu Haojie,Zhang Da's situation is slightly relaxed。 The 10 mothers recruited by Zhang Da in the early days of his business took on the main production tasks when the Pinduoduo store broke out, and their monthly income also rose to five figures, and later these people brought in more than 200 mothers one after another.
This also made Zhang Da realize that the unique work characteristics of wearing armor can make Bao Ma even better. "Wearing nails is a pure manual work suitable for careful people, and the piecework is highly flexible, and the Bao Ma group is naturally suitable for this job." According to Zhang Da, it is generally as long as a week, as short as two or three days, and Bao Ma can get started.
▲ There is a commission for each pair of wearing armor, and skilled mothers can earn more than 10,000 yuan a month (Photo by Ran Zhenghong)
When she first taught, Zhang Da's wife Gu Hanling noticed that high income and free time were important reasons to attract Bao Ma to enter the industry.
"In a small fourth- or fifth-tier county like Donghai, men used to go out to make money and women took care of the family. But in recent years, many families have had a second child, and the pressure of supporting a family alone has suddenly increased. Gu Hanling said that in the past, the cashier and other jobs suitable for Bao Ma's mother only had enough income to supplement the family, which obviously could not satisfy them.
For example, Dong Erjing, after giving birth to a third child, the pressure increased sharply. Before touching the wearing of nails, Dong Erjing had considered becoming a "screw" on the factory assembly line.
"In the past, if you wanted to earn a high income, you could only go to electronics factories and garment factories, but I had to work more than ten hours a day, and I couldn't take care of my children at all, and I only got four or five thousand yuan a month." Dong Erjing said that after three years of cooperation with Ma Zhuang, his monthly income reached eight or nine thousand yuan. "Mr. Ma's business in Pinduoduo is very large, and I have also brought a lot of little sisters to do it together."
In the East China Sea, the amount of money to make a pair of armor wears ranges from five to eight yuan. With the accumulation of experience, the speed of workmanship has become faster, and the income of Bao Ma is still increasing.
Li Jingqin, the mother of two children, has a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan, twice as much as when she first entered the industry. "Although there are new models every week, there is almost no difference in the actual production process, and once you are proficient, you will only do it faster and faster." She said.
At the same time as her income doubled, Li Jingqin also took care of her children's three meals a day. She works not far from her home, and her daily commute to and from work takes no more than five minutes. After the rise of wearing nails, businesses have become popular to set up small workshops around the community, so that mothers can work and take care of their families at the same time.
For example, Ma Zhuang, after Pinduoduo's sales reached 20 million yuan, the number of mothers he cooperated with soared to more than 600, for which he set up more than 20 workshops; Through six workshops, Zhang Da has maintained stable cooperation with more than 200 mothers.
"In the past, we would rent a residential building only after we recruited full mothers." According to Ma Zhuang, the business of wearing nails continues to blow out in Pinduoduo, driving the supply of Bao Ma labor to exceed demand, and now merchants will first seize the nearest residential building before recruiting Bao Ma.
This also implies that Bao Ma has become a core talent for wearing nails.
Since last year, in the face of the Donghai market, where there is no treasure mother to recruit, Ma Zhuang went to Kaifeng, Henan Province to set up a workshop. "Because there is no way to recruit mothers locally, even those in rural towns and villages have been robbed, so they can only go to other places to recruit."
The peak season is only 20 days, and continuous explosion has become a way to break the game
Clothing has typical off-peak season sales characteristics, and wearable armor as a clothing accessory also shows similar characteristics: wearable armor tends to sell better in winter.
Gu Hanling found that compared with clothing, the peak season time for wearing nails is shorter. "Although Christmas, New Year's Day and other festivals are also peak sales seasons, but more than 20 days before and after the Spring Festival can contribute to 70% of the year's sales."
How to seize these more than 20 days and make more profits in the extremely short period of wearing armor? The practice of Donghai people is to keep as many mothers as possible in the off-season of sales.
"This is the same as the factory, Bao Ma feels that you don't have many orders here in the off-season, the income is unstable, and she won't come to the peak season no matter how many orders there are." Gu Hanling emphasized that after all, no matter where she is in the East China Sea, her mother is the object of competition.
▲After the explosion of wearing nails, industries such as color glue and nail tablets in the East China Sea are also rising. Colorant (Photo by Ran Zhenghong)
Because the mother was not retained in the off-season, there were many people who lost orders to wear armor in the peak season.
Among them is Liu Haojie. Since the first big explosion in 2019, he has ushered in a continuous outbreak in Pinduoduo in the next three years, with daily sales of more than 600,000 yuan at its peak, but he still missed a lot of orders. "No way, how much mom you can keep in the off-season is destined to make in the peak season."
For a period of time, individual merchants in the East China Sea would stock up on a large area in the off-season, and absorbed a lot of Bao Ma in a short time, but because of the pressure on the unsalable cash flow of goods, it soon thundered. "It can only be said that these people are too ambitious." Zhang Da described.
Compared with aggressive hoarding, Zhang Da continues to test the strategy of explosive products in Pinduoduo, which is more steady.
"By comparing the number of clicks and conversion rates of wearing armor, Pinduoduo can test explosive models within seven days at the latest." Zhang Da said. In this way, he measured a "Starlight Chocolate" with a total sales of 100,000 orders in three days; Another "beveled edge French" wearing armor has become an evergreen model that has been selling for half a year.
This summer, Zhang's strategy was validated by the market. In June, he had just rented a new factory covering an area of 2,000 square meters. The continuous testing of popular models on Pinduoduo gave him the confidence to double the size of the team in the off-season.
Ma Zhuang has a clearer set of numbers when testing explosive products: "If the conversion rate of a wearable nail test reaches 3%, it is very likely to detonate." Zhang Da explained, "Because the product will grow explosively, if a wearable nail sells 100 orders in Pinduoduo today, it may become 500 orders tomorrow, and 1,000 orders the day after tomorrow, and the overall sales volume will be very considerable." ”
Under this strategy, Ma Zhuang once measured a super single product with sales of one million yuan.
The strategy of testing popular models in Pinduoduo is being followed by more Donghai people, and the industry is gradually extended to the fields of color glue and wearing a five-piece suit in addition to nail pieces.
"The threshold for the production of wearing armor is not high, and we can only have an advantage if we do the whole industry." Some merchants said.