700 billion yuan—that's the e-commerce transaction volume for garments in Tianmen in 2025, with women's apparel sales ranking first in Hubei Province. While most counties are still striving for the 10-billion mark, Tianmen has entered a window period to sprint toward the 100-billion industrial cluster. At the June 28 youth entrepreneur salon, practitioners from across the country discussed branding, cross-border e-commerce, and AI, reflecting the industry's urgent need to shift from scale expansion to value leap.
Industrial Foundation: From 'Tailor's Hometown' to E-commerce Hub
The foundation of Tianmen's garment industry lies in its flexible supply chain. Single orders of 50 to 100 pieces are acceptable, and popular styles can be replenished within 48 hours. This 'small order, fast turnaround' capability gives Tianmen an edge in the live-streaming e-commerce era. The city has built 37 textile and garment industrial parks, gathering 43,000 market entities and 13,000 e-commerce stores. Nearly 100,000 returnees have brought back technology, experience, and supply chain resources.
Cost advantages are equally prominent. Tianmen is already one of the cities with the lowest express delivery costs in Hubei. Its woven fashion craftsmanship is deeply accumulated, with decades of technical expertise in categories like dresses, blouses, and women's suits. The government defines the current phase as a 'five-period overlay' of advantage reshaping, resource aggregation, rising popularity, catch-up window, and golden opportunity for action, fully committed to building a 'famous e-commerce city for garments.'
Branding Gap: From Zero to Existence, but Still a Distance
The 'Tianmen Yishang' regional public brand was launched in 2023, with usage management regulations issued in 2024 and 13 companies authorized. In 2025, the brand pavilion opened, a management system covering 194 standards was established, and the supply chain information platform went online, with over 1,200 certified entities. The same year, the brand won first place in the 'Hubei Brands I Love' TV competition.
Despite these achievements, Xu Jianhua, president of the China Textile Industry Federation's Circulation Branch, pointed out that Tianmen still lags in brand cultivation and enterprise digital transformation. Consumers now demand personalization, cost-effectiveness, and quality-price ratio. Only by pursuing differentiation and digitalization can the industry precisely serve young consumer groups. This means Tianmen's garment industry must shift from 'selling goods' to 'selling brands,' and from 'manufacturing' to 'intelligent manufacturing.'
Cross-border Live Streaming: A Test Field for Overseas Channels
The cross-border live streaming practice of Tianmen Qianguang Media in Thailand provides a replicable model. Since launch in November 2025, it has shipped over 200,000 pieces, operating 20 live-streaming rooms in Thailand with an average daily order volume of 3,000 to 4,000. The team adopts a 'dual-track model': the Tianmen headquarters handles product selection, planning, traffic placement, and production; the Thailand team manages live streaming, after-sales, and user interaction. 85% of goods are sourced from Tianmen factories, with monthly sales of 160,000 garments.
The deeper value of cross-border live streaming lies in data feeding back into production. Partner factories have seen profit margins increase by 15% to 20%, with products better tailored to overseas market demands. The team plans to expand Thailand's live-streaming rooms to 50-80 this year and enter the Vietnamese and Indonesian markets next year. As China's largest inland hometown of overseas Chinese, Tianmen has abundant overseas trade resources that are now being activated.
AI Empowerment: Efficiency Revolution in Practice
The case of Hubei Laiyixiao Apparel demonstrates the practical effects of AI in e-commerce operations. This leading dress company, producing 100,000 pieces daily, used to take ten to fifteen days to shoot a set of photos; now it generates over a dozen sets in half an hour with AI. The customer service team has been reduced from 60-80 people to 6-7, with AI agents handling pre-sales and after-sales tasks. In 2025, Laiyixiao's sales reached 1.4 billion yuan.
AI applications go beyond cost reduction. In product selection, design, and supply chain coordination, technology is reshaping traditional processes. Companies like Hangzhou Houpu Technology shared AI-assisted design and intelligent selection tools, offering Tianmen enterprises new perspectives on technology empowerment.