In the outdoor fabric specialty zone of Dongsheng Road, Keqiao China Textile City, a brand that started with school uniform fabrics is now reshaping perceptions of traditional fabric merchants with premium fabric prices ranging from 100 to 600 yuan per meter. The dual-brand strategy of Haoli Textile and Qiting is not a simple product line extension but a practical exploration of the path of 'supply chain reuse plus track differentiation.' Behind this lies a microcosm of Keqiao's fabric market shifting from price competition to value competition.
Background
Haoli Textile's origin dates back to 2013 when its parent brand Qiting set up a store in the East Market, primarily dealing in school uniform base fabrics, accumulating customers and supply chain through solid quality control. In 2018, as profits in conventional fabrics were squeezed, the brand initiated a strategic transformation: on one hand, it ventured into functional outdoor fabrics; on the other, it established Haoli Textile to focus on high-end business menswear, forming an independent dual-brand operation. This timing aligns with the industry cycle—overcapacity in low-end products and rising environmental costs prompted merchants to seek high-value-added tracks.
The transformation was not a fresh start but a sharing of existing resources: Haoli and Qiting belong to the same integrated trade-and-manufacturing enterprise, sharing a 15,000-square-meter warehouse and adopting a dual 'stock plus customization' model. Stock items can handle small urgent orders, while custom orders take 3-10 days, with the fastest shipping in 1 hour. This rapid response capability is a core demand of high-end clients and a service that traditional fabric markets struggle to provide.
Industry Impact
Haoli's differentiation manifests in both product and channel. On the product front, it uses all-natural fibers such as wool, silk, and lyocell, abandoning chemical dyeing for plant-extracted colorants, aligning with the light luxury trend. This process barrier directly affects pricing—100-600 yuan per meter—avoiding low-end price wars and precisely targeting designers and brand buyers. For buyers, this means fabric is not just a material but part of the design language; the uniqueness of plant dyeing can enhance the premium of finished garments.
On the channel front, Haoli leverages digitalization as a key tool for serving high-end clients. Its core fabrics (such as waffle, health knit, air layer, etc.) have been digitally archived in the AI Fabric mini-program, supporting one-click matching of similar fabrics. This solves the pain point of high-end clients bringing sample fabrics for sourcing: previously, manual comparison was inefficient, and remote communication with overseas clients was costly; now the system quickly retrieves matches, improving accuracy and saving labor. For high-end fabric businesses relying on small-batch, multi-variety orders, digitalization is essential infrastructure.
More noteworthy is the upcoming trial operation of the AI Fabric Experience Hall on Dongsheng Road, equipped with smart body measurement, 3D virtual fitting, fabric visual creation, and garment simulation, showcasing physical fabrics and virtual samples online and offline. This marks an upgrade from 'sample display' to 'experience service,' reducing sampling costs for designers and brand clients and accelerating decisions; for merchants, it opens new customer acquisition channels.
The synergy of the dual brands is already showing results: the outdoor fabric line has introduced Italian imported napping machines to boost capacity and bargaining power; the foreign trade channel exports EU-standard fluorine-free eco-friendly fabrics, with long-term cooperation with Qiaodun for 8-10 years and clients like Xiaobeibei and Little Swan, feeding high-end menswear customers back to Haoli. This 'outdoor plus high-end' dual-wheel drive has led to a clear performance improvement after two years of transformation, with order growth maintaining a positive trend.