In Yiwu International Trade City, in a hardware accessories store called Henglida, blue and gray are the most “calm” colors here.
Most merchants like to use high-saturation red and yellow to attract the attention of merchants, but Henglida’s store is a bit “offbeat”, with the main colors being sky blue, gray and black.
“We want to do something different.” Chen Liuyang, who was born in 1996, stood in his shop and picked up a sky blue wrench with a little pride in his tone. “Many people came to my house and said, ‘Your house is so refreshing.’ This color is rare in the market.”
This is a story about the “rice bowl” being passed down from generation to generation.
The protagonists of the story are two generations. The mother Li Hong laid the “foundation” and the daughter Chen Liuyang is “building the building”.
In 2004, Chen Liuyang’s mother Li Hong was doing business in Yucheng County, Shangqiu, Henan Province, and her uncle was in Yiwu.
“He said how much money can you make in a year? I said you can earn tens of thousands a year.” Li Hong recalled, “He said, come to Yiwu and have a look. I’m here. Yiwu is really a good window to the world. Once we come here, we don’t want to leave. In those years, foreign businessmen who came to us to order orders lined up at the door, and we were reluctant to write orders.”
Chen Liuyang is the eldest son of the family.
Her mother was in business and had no time to look after her, so she took her to the market.
While other little girls played with dolls, she played with wrenches and screwdrivers.
“I hold various tools as toys,” Li Hong said with a smile, “I have liked dealing with foreigners since I was a child, and I am very interested in this.”
This interest later became Chen Liuyang’s responsibility.
Chen Liuyang arrived at the store right after graduating from college.
The door opens at 8:30 every day, and she is never absent.
“I sometimes can’t do it myself.” Li Hong said frankly, “But she can do it. She has a strong sense of responsibility, is serious about her work, has ideas, and is innovative. I feel relieved to leave it to her.”
For Chen Liuyang, taking over was completed naturally.
Nowadays, Li Hong comes to the store every afternoon to take a look, deal with things that need to be dealt with, and sit and chat with customers when there is nothing else.
Chen Liuyang has taken over most of the work, receiving customers, handling difficult problems in the warehouse, and guiding employees to place orders.
She has known since she was a child what the business logic of her mother’s generation is, which is to compete on price, increase volume, and make small profits but quick turnover.
In the years since she took over, she feels that the Yiwu market has changed. “The profits of the entire market have been pulled down. There are too many similar products in the market. If you don’t sell them at a low price, others will sell them, and in the end no one will make money.” She said that she does not want to follow the old path of the older generation of merchants.
It is not that there have been collisions of ideas between the two generations.
Once, a customer thought the product was expensive, and Li Hong instinctively thought: “How about making a slightly inferior product and lowering the price?” Chen Liuyang disagreed.
“No.” Chen Liuyang’s attitude was very firm, “The quality must be the best, and it must be made of good materials. We blindly pursue cheap prices, and if the customer doesn’t use it well, the return order will be gone.” This small matter became a key “power transfer” between mother and daughter.
Finally, the mother listened to her daughter.
“Their ideas are much more innovative than ours.” When Li Hong said this, there was no disappointment in her tone, only unconcealable pride.
With the confidence of quality, Chen Liuyang began to think about the “face” of the product.
From there, she started putting her own stamp on the product.
She designed a unified color system for Henglida’s hardware tools – sky blue, gray and black.
In a hardware market that is all red and purple, this piece of blue looks particularly refreshing.
“Many people came to my house and said, ‘Your house is so refreshing.’” She picked up a sky-blue wrench as if to display a work of art, “I don’t necessarily have to follow the path that others are taking.”
Chen Liuyang’s changes were also remembered by a foreign businessman who has cooperated with him for more than 20 years.
This client has a child about the same age as Chen Liuyang.
Clients often use her as an example to teach their children: “Look at my current partner, she is much younger than her father, but she has been doing business with her mother since she was a child. You must also have this spirit and pass on the business.”
This incident deeply touched Chen Liuyang.
“‘Creating the second generation’, my mother wants me to take over her business, and I also want my children to take over the business.” She said, “It is passed down from generation to generation. We Chinese all like this.” She thought about it and gave a very simple definition of “inheritance”, “It is a rice bowl. This generation has food, the next generation will continue to have food, and every generation will have food.”
Having maintained quality and created characteristics, Chen Liuyang focused on more cutting-edge things.
“The Yiwu market has changed, and I have to make changes.” Chen Liuyang said.
She has begun to pay attention to intelligent tools.
AI robots have recently been launched in the market that can receive guests, greet guests, and record information.
“If AI becomes more and more mature, I may buy one and put it in the store to work as a salesperson.” She said, “The robot’s brain is computerized and may be more accurate than humans. In Yiwu, a place that does global business, efficiency is money.”
When asked, “No
Are you afraid of having your job taken away by a machine?” Chen Liuyang smiled and said: “It is just a tool. What humans have to do are more advanced things, such as selecting products, setting strategies, and maintaining customer relationships.
AI cannot do these things.” Her attitude towards new technologies is the same as her attitude towards inheritance: neither blind obedience nor rejection.
If it’s useful, take it and use it.
These changes gave Chen Liuyang greater confidence.
Her dream is far more than an AI robot.
“I have thought that I can make the company public, and I will definitely work hard.” She spoke quickly, with light in her eyes.
She paused, as if to confirm that she was not talking big words, “This is a place where global business is done. It is not impossible. Everything is possible.”
Henglida’s current warehousing, passenger flow and performance have “several times increased” compared to when her mother ran it.
From a small store of 14 square meters to a store of several hundred square meters upstairs and downstairs, from only doing domestic wholesale to exporting to many countries around the world, she has watched this business “grow” step by step.
“I hope that whether they are old customers or new customers, when they think of Henglida, they will think of reliability and stability.” She said, “I hope it can become a brand with both reputation and warmth.”
This is Chen Liuyang’s story, and it is also the story that is happening in countless shops in Yiwu.
There are tens of thousands of shops in Yiwu International Trade City. Behind each stall, there are one generation, two generations, or more generations.
Some people are guarding, some are breaking in, and some are handing over.
Henglida is just a microcosm of them.
The sky blue wrench is lying quietly on the shelf at the moment.
Early tomorrow morning, it will float to the other side of the earth following a certain container shipped to a foreign businessman.
And every morning at 8:30, Chen Liuyang would still open the rolling shutter door on time.
This business has grown from a 14-square-meter store to a store of several hundred square meters, from a mother to a daughter, and will continue to grow.
Because the story of Yiwu is never the story of one person.
It is to pass on that simple belief from generation to generation – if you have food to eat, you have dreams to dream about, you can have a bright future.
