Editor’s Note
This article highlights the dynamic growth of Haifeng County’s jewelry industry, driven by innovative e-commerce models like live streaming. It underscores how traditional sectors are adapting to digital trends, creating new opportunities for both businesses and consumers.
“This year, crystal jewelry is very hot! You can tell if it’s real or fake just by touching it. Real crystal feels icy cold…” At noon on May 6th, Dong Ge, the host of the “Cloud Jewelry” live streaming room, showcased a crystal bracelet to the camera. In less than 10 minutes, 7,000 items were sold out.
The high sales volume of the “Cloud Jewelry” live streaming room is a vivid snapshot of the rapid development of the gold and silver jewelry industry in Haifeng County, Shanwei. At the important juncture of seeing initial results from the three-year “Hundred Counties, Thousand Towns, Ten Thousand Villages High-Quality Development Project” (referred to as the “Hundred Thousand Ten Thousand Project”), Haifeng County is seizing the momentum of progress, promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. Currently, the county has over 10,000 market entities in the jewelry industry, with an annual output value of about 35 billion yuan. The average annual compound growth rate over the past three years reached 5.27%, injecting continuous vitality into the county’s high-quality economic development.
Unlike Shenzhen, which holds a leading position in jewelry design technology and innovative design concepts within the industry-leading jewelry trading center, and Guangzhou Panyu, which has become a global jewelry supply chain base through manufacturing breakthroughs, Haifeng has carved out a unique “jewelry aura” in the global colored gemstone niche segment by leveraging cross-border e-commerce and low-cost advantages.
Haifeng County’s Meilong Town is known as the “Capital of Chinese Jewelry.”
With courage as the “boldness” and seizing opportunities as the “innovation.” In the early 1980s, led by Hong Kong businessmen from Haifeng, the first wave of Haifeng entrepreneurs ventured boldly into Shenzhen, accumulating jewelry processing experience. Later, leveraging advantages in hometown labor and land costs, they returned home to establish processing workshops. Using the “front shop, back factory” model, they embarked on a journey “from nothing to something, from something to excellence.”
With the deepening of reform and opening up and the development of the market economy, Haifeng’s gold and silver jewelry processing enterprises rapidly increased to over a thousand. They not only expanded production scale but also continuously improved craftsmanship levels, gradually forming a complete industrial chain from raw material procurement, design, processing, production to sales, ushering in a rapid development “golden period.”
Differentiation is the foundation of Haifeng’s jewelry circle. “If we followed the traditional jewelry industry path, whether in design or manufacturing, we couldn’t compete with regions like Shenzhen and Guangzhou Panyu, which have complete jewelry industry chains. For Haifeng, choosing a niche segment is particularly crucial.”
Haifeng’s approach is to specialize and excel in colored gemstones, opening up new avenues for the entire colored gemstone industry cluster, adapting to global colored gemstone consumption trends, and building an “Eastern Colored Gemstone Fashion Source.”
In 2004, the Guangdong Kela Jewelry Trading Market was completed; in 2007, the Dongman Jewelry Trading Plaza was built. The operation of these two major trading markets not only helped Haifeng’s gold and silver jewelry industry break through the constraints of having “raw material procurement and product sales” both externally but also formed an industrial cluster effect, making it known as the “Capital of Chinese Jewelry” and “Capital of Chinese Colored Gemstones.”
Leveraging e-commerce momentum to achieve “selling globally.”
Said Wen Yiwen, General Manager of the External Affairs Department of Shanwei Cloud Jewelry E-commerce Co., Ltd. In recent years, the company has seized new opportunities in e-commerce development, helping Kela jewelry merchants promote products through online live streaming. Over the past three years, its average monthly GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) reached 400 million yuan, ranking among the top three in Douyin live streaming带货达人榜单.
Guangdong Yaxiang Jewelry (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yaxiang Jewelry”), established in 2021, has also ridden the fast lane by leveraging e-commerce opportunities. Company General Manager Lin Dan introduced that they take cross-border e-commerce and digital transformation as core driving forces, registered trademarks and built their own brand in the US, with promising development momentum. Last year, the company’s cross-border e-commerce export volume reached as high as 20 million US dollars. As a cross-border platform enterprise for Shenzhen jewelry exports, the North American market, while an important trading partner for Yaxiang Jewelry, is not the only one. From a backend demand perspective, recent purchases from European buyers have increased. “The impact of trade frictions on us is not significant,” said Lin Dan.
Haifeng County has over 10,000 market entities in the jewelry industry.
Said He Jiexun, person in charge of the Haifeng Douyin E-commerce Live Streaming Base. After more than three years of development, the base’s daily online transaction volume has increased from 1.5 million yuan to 3 million yuan, attracting over 1,000 e-commerce live streaming merchants to settle in.
Because of e-commerce’s “industrial intelligence,” and also because of e-commerce’s “successful empowerment.” According to industry estimates, about 70% of Kela Town’s jewelry is sold through live streaming e-commerce. In the first quarter of this year, Kela Town’s jewelry live streaming sales reached 327 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6%.
Said Chen Liming, Deputy County Mayor of Haifeng County.
Digital factories reshape the industrial ecosystem.
At the Yaxiang Jewelry “Cloud Factory” Industry 4.0 digital factory, every piece of jewelry semi-finished product has a QR code. Through these codes, customers can trace the entire production process online and check product manufacturing progress in real-time.
Introduced Xie Lianghua, person in charge of Guangdong Jingzhiyu Jewelry Co., Ltd. The company invested 6 million yuan to implement the “Jewelry Processing Equipment Technology Transformation Project”, comprehensively improving product variety, quality, and competitiveness by upgrading production lines.
Over the past three years, Haifeng has processed an average of over 9,000 tons of gold, platinum, and palladium annually, and over 50,000 tons of gemstones and semi-precious stones.