The dusty hardware store on the street may be the most incomprehensible thing in this era.
The storefront is not big, the boss is sitting behind the counter and taking a nap, and the number of people who come into the store all day long can be counted on one hand.
But if you look carefully, the milk tea shop on the same street has changed its sign three times, the clothing store has closed, and the convenience store has posted a transfer sign, but the hardware store is still firmly in place.
Isn’t this picture quite counter-intuitive?
Chishi Consulting has a set of data. There are almost one million large and small retail hardware stores in the country, twice the number of milk tea shops.
In recent years, e-commerce has overwhelmed many traditional retail industries, but hardware stores seem to be living in another channel, keeping their heads open and taking their time.
What is even more unexpected is that this seemingly deserted business has supported a county-level city with a GDP exceeding 100 billion.
It is hidden under Jinhua, Zhejiang, and is called Yongkang.
When talking about wealthy counties in Zhejiang, the first thing that comes to mind is Yiwu and Cixi. The name Yongkang sounds unfamiliar to outsiders, but once you walk in, all your imagination of small counties will have to be overthrown.
Most people who go back to Yongkang for the first time will be dazzled by the cars on the roadside.
Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, and Porsche are strolling on the county road, all with “Zhejiang G” license plates.
Luxury car 4S shops are originally a rarity in county-level cities, but Yongkang is lucky to have a lot of them.
My friend went there on a business trip and ordered a ride-hailing service. The driver picked him up in a Mercedes-Benz E-Class. He didn’t dare to say a word in the back seat.
Just looking at the car is not enough, housing prices can tell the story even more.
The average price of new houses in Yongkang urban area is 30,001 square meters, second-hand houses are stable at more than 25,000, and the total price of an ordinary residence easily exceeds one million.
This level is second only to Yiwu and Cixi among county-level cities in Zhejiang, and puts many central and western provincial capital cities, such as Chengdu and Chongqing, behind.
In 2024, Yongkang’s per capita GDP has reached 134,119 yuan, equivalent to more than 18,000 U.S. dollars, and has stepped on the threshold of a developed economy.
The growth rate of disposable income of urban and rural residents ranks first in Jinhua, and the difference between urban and rural residents is about 1.71.
It means that this place is not only crowded with wealthy people, but also the pockets of ordinary villagers are evenly bulging.
When it comes to common prosperity, Yongkang speaks with numbers.
Even more exaggerated is the number of companies.
There are more than a dozen companies in Yongkang that pay taxes of more than 100 million yuan a year, and about 60 companies that pay more than 20 million yuan.
A county-level city with a permanent population of less than one million is home to more than 30,000 hardware companies, 140,000 hardware market entities, and more than 400,000 employees.
Calculating the ratio, almost one out of every ten people in Yongkang is serving a bowl of hardware.
What supports all of this is the hardware industry belt with an annual output value of over 100 billion.
In 2024, Yongkang’s total industrial output value is 104.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. The hardware company accounts for more than 90%, and contributes more than 80% to the city’s GDP.
Along with Japan and Germany, it is ranked among the top three in power tools in the world, and is the only county in China that has been named a “world-class hardware industry cluster.”
Having said this, you may think that there must be a big mine behind Yongkang, and you can dig out iron ore with a shovel of dirt at the door.
The opposite is true.
The eight words “seven mountains, one water and two fields” describe Yongkang, which has many mountains and little land. Even cultivated land is valuable, let alone metal mineral deposits.
A small county town with no mines managed to build a net worth of hundreds of billions by relying on “forging iron”. It sounds like metaphysics, but if you look at history, there are traces to follow.
Yongkang people have been playing with iron for thousands of years.
In the Han Dynasty, they could make crossbow machines, and in the Jin Dynasty they could forge iron swords. In the Yuan Dynasty, Yongkang’s copper and iron locks were included as tributes and brought into the royal treasury.
In ancient times, places without arable land had to either rely on the sea to make a living or rely on craftsmanship to make a living. Yongkang chose the latter path.
Craftsmanship is passed down from generation to generation, and over time it becomes the foundation of a place’s soil and water.
There is a team among the older generation of Yongkang people called “Hardware Store Carrying Men”, who carry burdens and travel around to mend pots, forge iron, sharpen scissors, and repair locks.
This group of people traveled across mountains and ridges and worked all over the country.
These days of walking around the streets have saved Yongkang people three things: they have become better and better at their craftsmanship, they have gained a better understanding of the market demand, and they have also solved the old problem of “how to make iron without a mine”.
The answer lies in the cry that goes around the streets – “Collect scrap metal.”
Scrapped iron and copperware are the “mines” that Yongkang people cannot see.
The recycled old hardware continues to flow back to Yongkang, and is reforged by this group of craftsmen.
This method of “turning waste into resources” was used hundreds of years ago, much earlier than the circular economy we talk about today.
Entering the stage of modernization, Yongkang figured out a division of labor method of “one village, one product, one township, one industry”.
Huku specializes in making scales, Gushan specializes in files, and Guli is the headquarters of power tools.
Each township focuses on a subcategory, forming a complete chain from smelting, parts, assembly to logistics and sales.
This kind of in-depth specialization was the underlying logic behind Yongkang’s ability to quickly receive e-commerce orders.
The location also helped a lot.
Yongkang is only 50 kilometers away from Yiwu and only 200 kilometers away from Ningbo and Zhoushan Port. High-speed railways are densely woven.
Yiwu has helped Yongkang expand its global business network, and Ningbo Port has left a fast lane for Yongkang’s products to go overseas.
In 2024, Yongkang’s express delivery business volume will soar to 871 million pieces, and the export volume of the hardware industry will reach 38.257 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.3%. This chain is closely connected to the world.
In the hardware category of Douyin e-commerce, Yongkang merchants account for almost half of the share, with categories such as smart door locks, thermos cups, and power tools dominating the list all year round.
30% of the world’s thermos cups, 80% of the fascia guns, and nearly 70% of the security doors come from Yongkang.
The screwdriver in your kitchen and the clothes drying rod on your balcony were probably made by Yongkang bosses.
As we enter 2026, the foreign trade environment has changed significantly.
The new round of tariff policies in the United States has been repeated, and the compliance threshold for cross-border e-commerce is also rising. Industrial belts such as Yongkang, which are highly dependent on exports, feel it most directly.
Fortunately, Yongkang people have a keen sense of smell. The domestic outdoor economy and smart home have exploded in the past two years, which has given them new room to move and spread the pressure of foreign trade to domestic demand.
Give a particularly down-to-earth example.
In recent years, the urban middle class has become obsessed with outdoor sports. Trekking poles, camping lights, and outdoor tent stands have become new trends.
A small factory that originally made wrenches in Yongkang immediately switched production lines to produce outdoor flashlights; a factory that originally made clothes drying sticks was able to turn around and produce trekking poles within half a month.
Outdoor equipment sold by big brands for thousands of yuan will be “remade” in Yongkang, and white-label versions worth tens of yuan will be sold in rural markets.
The bosses in Yongkang have their own logic for doing business – just stop when things are good.
When you notice that a certain category has good profits, you immediately put it into production to seize the market; when the profit margin is squeezed, you decisively close the production line and use the money you earn to find the next outlet.
This “wave-chasing economy” has allowed Yongkang to continuously tap into almost all consumer trends in the past decade or so, from fascial guns to smart door locks, from air fryers to outdoor power supplies.
Of course, the problem is there.
Whether county industries can engage in high-end R&D will always be an unavoidable hurdle.
Yongkang is less attractive to senior design talents and brand operation talents. Young people are less and less interested in working as technicians in factories, and there is a gap in front-line technical workers.
How to grow a white brand into a brand is a question that Yongkang and even all manufacturing industry belts have to answer.
But building a brand is not the only way to survive.
In a market as big as China, consumers in counties and towns will always need low-priced and high-quality white-label products.
The really great thing about an industrial cluster like Yongkang is that it can not only do OEM work for big brands, but also sell its own products, walking on two legs.
In 2026, when the internal and external environment is not very calm, this flexibility has become a scarce resource.
Next time you pass by that humble hardware store on the street, you might as well take a second look.
What is hidden behind the dusty glass door may be much more lively than a milk tea shop.
Relying on the blacksmithing skills passed down from generations, a group of Zhejiang people, with no mines, no ports, and no farmland, managed to turn a seemingly rustic business into a 100-billion-dollar business. This fact itself is more worthy of consideration than any business textbook.
