“In China, it’s hard to beat other people on the price nowadays. The advantage of low prices, if not gone already, is gradually fading,” said Eric Poon（潘浩华), Executive Director of Texwinca Holding Limited, a Hong Kong listed company since 1992. Even for the industry’s power players, its difficult to the avoid cutthroat competition at the price-sensitive ‘basics’ end of the market.
“We had to cut back on staff and capacity at our textile subsidiary, Nice Dyeing Factory Ltd., in order to become leaner and more flexible and efficient,” said Mr. Poon. In just four years, the company has reduced its capacity by 20 percent, and downsized its workforce to less than 8,000 workers. “The macro-economic environment has changed. Competing on size or volume is simply not a sustainable business model,” he said. “Now we have fewer workers, but more focused on better service and value-added products.”
At the same time, the company actually spent more money on upgrading its machinery to accommodate better production, reducing energy consumption, and working towards less impact to the environment.

“What differentiates Nice Dyeing is that we can achieve very short lead-times and provide consistent quality. Our clients know if they need fabric, Nice Dyeing can deliver. They know that we are reliable. Reliability matters in the whole chain of getting the things done.”

Nice Dyeing is one of the world’s biggest fabric manufacturers producing around 24 million pounds finished fabrics and 9 million pounds of dyed yarns per month. Sales for the year ended March 2013 reached US$700 million. The company started as a Hong Kong-based circular knitter in 1975, and added dyeing, finishing and yarn dyeing capacity during the next ten years. In 1992, the company relocated the mill to Dongguan.

By leveraging its vertical set up, which goes from spinning and knitting to dyeing and finishing, Nice Dyeing can provide consistent quality and fast turnaround that the market now demands. We have a centralized production setup, which can be very efficient.” said Mr. Poon.

“Fashion brands do not have big buffer on lead-times and qualities. They might do the very basic, very price-sensitive programs in-house or with their related mills. But when it comes to more fashionable and more demanding products, they would rather work with us. Even though the textiles and shipping may cost them slightly more,” he added.

“We have a strong R&D department, which enables us to promote new things to the clients.” said Mr. Poon.

 

The Importance of Reliable Market Information

“Good information is key part of staying competitive. We’ve subscribed to Inside Fashion for over ten years because it provides reliable market intelligence written by an editorial team who is actually in the market,” said Mr. Poon.

“We also look to the fabric and color trend information for new ideas and inspiration.”

From Price Driven to Fashion Driven

“Today more than half of the company’s business is fashion driven.”

“Consumers are buying smarter, and maybe slightly smaller quantities these days, but they are trading up. People are looking for more durable, better quality products. This is creating a new challenge for the market,” said Mr. Poon. “In the end however, reliability on quality and lead-time is still the key to the market.

Nice Dyeing is proud to be the “One mill Solution” which can exceed the clients’ expectations.