While most fabric traders struggle for a few cents of profit per meter, the functional fabric zone on Dongsheng Road at China Textile City tells a different story: cooling ice-silk knits, breathable bird's-eye mesh, soft milk silk, and warm flannel are neatly displayed, attracting a steady stream of buyers. This stark contrast in market performance reveals a structural shift in the knitted sports fabric industry—low-price commodity products are seeing shrinking margins, while source factories offering composite functions, spot supply, and digital services are firmly holding pricing power.
Market Divergence: Functional Fabrics as the Growth Engine
From a product mix perspective, full-polyester and polyester-spandex knitted fabrics have expanded beyond sportswear into yoga, outdoor sun protection, and home soft furnishing. Spring/summer bestsellers like ice silk, milk silk, and dense bird's-eye mesh focus on cooling and moisture-wicking properties; autumn/winter favorites such as flannel, coral fleece, and super-soft knits emphasize warmth retention and skin-friendliness. This seasonal and scenario-based product strategy transforms fabric from a bulk commodity into a functionally positioned intermediate good.
For buyers, this means a fundamental change in sourcing logic. The old approach of ordering by weight and color is being replaced by a refined method based on functional metrics—cooling coefficient, moisture-wicking rate, elastic recovery. Both domestic and export orders are growing, but not for everyone: source factories with complete supply chains and spot inventory are the primary beneficiaries of this growth.
Source Factory Breakthrough: Full-Chain Integration and Flexible Spot Supply
The case of Gude Textile is illustrative. This source factory, specializing in sports & home knitted fabrics, integrates raw material procurement, fabric knitting, eco-friendly dyeing, spot wholesale, and small-batch sampling. With a thousand tons of spot inventory, it enables small batches and multi-color rapid sampling. This full-chain capability directly solves long-standing industry pain points: previously, buyers needed multiple suppliers for cooling and warm fabrics, and small workshops lacked dyeing and finishing facilities, resulting in color fading and coarse texture that failed to meet mid-to-high-end brand requirements.
More notably, the factory uses virgin polyester and high-elasticity polyester-spandex raw materials, complemented by a full range of finishing processes including preshrinking, cooling coating, anti-pilling brushing, and reactive eco-dyeing. This prevents issues like poor elasticity, pilling, and cooling failure associated with low-grade recycled polyester fabrics. This means quality competition has shifted from knitting to finishing, and technological barriers are replacing price barriers as the new moat. For downstream apparel brands, choosing such a supplier is not just about buying fabric but securing stable quality and rapid response capabilities.
Digitalization and Green Transformation: The Twin Engines of Industrial Competitiveness
AI digital tools are becoming a key variable in upgrading the knitting industry. The AI Fabric mini-program launched at China Textile City can identify fabric parameters and generate garment renderings and promotional materials with one click, significantly reducing digitalization costs for merchants. The value lies in bridging the information gap between fabric wholesale and apparel brand design—buyers can preview garment effects without physical samples, greatly improving selection efficiency and communication precision. During the 2026 spring/summer textile fair, a dense cooling bird's-eye knitted fabric secured a 30,000-meter cross-border export order, a typical example of digital-enabled transactions.
Meanwhile, green dyeing and eco-certifications are evolving from “bonus” to “must-have.” Eco-friendly raw materials and OEKO certification have become prerequisites for export orders, driven by international brands' hard requirements for supply chain sustainability. For local Keqiao enterprises, leveraging the complete knitting industry chain, coupled with AI empowerment and green production, is driving comprehensive upgrades. Looking ahead, R&D in functional and recycled fabrics, along with the fusion of digital technology and green processes, will determine whether Keqiao can sustain its global position as a hub for knitted fabrics.