Italian high-end linen is here
Recently, LINIFICIO, a company under the Italian MARZOTTO Group, landed in China for the first time with two major brands of linen yarn, ZIGNAGO and LINIFICIO, at the 9th China International Textile Yarn Exhibition, which immediately caused a sensation. On the first day of the exhibition, many domestic and foreign professionals discovered this booth. Many potential buyers from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and mainland China came in droves. Even the CEOs of many domestic linen companies came to communicate.
Among the foreign pavilions that are almost monopolized by Pakistani and Indian companies, Italian faces are indeed conspicuous. Ron, the sales director of LINIFICIO, obviously also enjoys his status as a “minority”. “I am the only company from Italy at the yarn show, which shows that compared with other European companies, our company has taken the first step and is ahead of them.” Ron said.
In the eyes of Chinese people, Italian products are a symbol of high-end and luxury. This Italian company participating in the exhibition seems to have no intention of breaking this impression. In its quotation, each ton of yarn is about 30% higher than the domestic quotation for yarn of the same specifications. When a reporter asked whether yarn buyers tend to choose products with high cost-effectiveness and whether such a price seems out of touch with the market, Ron replied that the positioning of their yarn is “high-end and luxury.” “Just like Italian luxury goods, the linen yarn we produce is a luxury product among yarns. It occupies not the ordinary market, but the high-end market.” Ron said.
Selling the terminal brand
Focus on textile production
The Italian LINIFICIO company was established in 1873 and was the third Italian company to be listed on the securities market. “His history is a storybook, just like the yarn and fabric sample book in my hand.” The yarn and fabric sample book in Ron’s hand is obviously more Italian artistic than those of other exhibitors. It is a thick book. , has been aged and has a very good taste.
It’s no wonder that the Italian LINIFICIO company is located in Milan, the world’s fashion center, surrounded by many Italian luxury brands, and its taste is certainly good. Not only that, its parent company, the Italian MARZOTTO Group, once owned big brands such as HugoBoss and Valentino. But just over four years ago, MARZOTTO’s decision-makers sold these two brands at a high price.
The move to sell off two of its own terminal brands seems very puzzling to us, but it is not a bad choice for the Italian MARZOTTO Group. “Our original business was very large, and we made both yarns and fabrics, as well as terminal brands. Comprehensive comparison, we believe that our greater advantage lies in production and manufacturing, not in terminals. At the same time, in order to avoid conflicts with our final Customers created competition and we sold both brands,” Ron said.
The facts that followed made us marvel at the strategic vision of the decision-makers of the Italian MARZOTTO Group. They sold these two terminal brands before the global financial crisis began to take its worst turn. At that time, the transaction price of these two brands was as high as 2.6 billion euros. Obviously, it will be difficult to have such an opportunity afterwards. What’s more important is that the Italian MARZOTTO Group has since focused more on textile production in the upstream of the industrial chain.
When it comes to LINIFICIO, everyone in the linen industry knows it. “Back then, the Harbin Linen Textile Factory was known as the largest linen factory in Asia. Why it didn’t call itself the largest linen factory in the world was because there was a LINIFICIO that was bigger than it at that time.” Zhao Zhigang, Chairman of Beijing Shangnuo Tiangong Trading Co., Ltd. Introduced to reporters.
Ron was also very excited when talking about the glory days of linen yarn. “At their peak, the annual output of the two yarn mills LINIFICIO and ZIGNAGO totaled 17,000 tons. At that time, linen yarn was widely used,” said Ron. “Now the annual output of the two linen yarn brands is around 5,000 tons. ”
After the European linen industry moved to Asia (mainly China), there were very few European linen spinning companies left, and LINIFICIO and ZIGNAGO are among the few survivors. When it comes to survival secrets, Ron believes that focusing on spinning, high-end positioning and technological innovation are essential factors.
Positioning high-end yarn
Entering the Chinese market
Located in the center of luxury brands, Italian LINIFICIO company has unique advantages in sales. After introducing various aspects of the company in detail, Ron was not as eager as other upstream manufacturers to tell reporters which brands their products are supplied to in order to enhance their status. In fact, the yarn produced by this Italian company is simply impossible to supply to non-high-end brands. Because even Ron himself admitted that their yarn prices are relatively high and are not suitable for producing mass merchandise. At the same time, there seems to be a different story here about who raises whose value in terms of brand and raw materials. “Our quality is very good. If high-end brands want to increase their value, they must use our yarn products.” Ron said.
To test the Chinese market, the Italian company LINIFICIO chose to cooperate with a local Chinese company, Beijing Shangnuo Tiangong Trading Co., Ltd. As a partner and Chinese agent, Zhao Zhigang, chairman of Beijing Shangnuo Tiangong Trading Co., Ltd., said: “The purpose of introducing Italian LINIFICIO is to take a fancy to its high-end positioning. It does not compete with ordinary Chinese linen yarn manufacturers, but it can also drive the entire industry to form positive interactions and develop towards high-end development. “Mr. Zhao Zhigang is a well-known expert in the linen industry at home and abroad. His company, Beijing Shangnuo Tiangong, is the first domestic linen industry chain operator, operating a full range of linen products from linen fiber to linen gauze to linen clothing. His company also operates its own fashion website “Shangran.com”. It is precisely because of his rich experience and reputation in the industry that the Italian LINIFICIO company hit it off and formed a strategic partnership.
At the yarn show, Italian LINIFICIO company exhibited its fabrics made of 90-count pure linen yarn, AB yarn, knitting linen yarn, colored yarn, and linen and wool blended yarn. These exhibits have attracted the attention of many buyers. Many companies have expressed their intention to cooperate, and some buyers have said that they have received orders with strict quality requirements and are in need of such high-end yarns. More buyers just showed strong interest and then sighed at the quotation: “The quality is really good, but the price is too high!”
In response, Ron smiled and said that the exhibition went better than he expected. Ron said: “It turned out that we just guessed that there would be demand for high-end yarns in China, but when we came here, we discovered the real demand.” Of course, the Italians will not blindly enter the Chinese market. They are already prepared for a protracted war. . “We don’t plan to generate orders immediately. The initial plan is to introduce our high-quality yarn to China first, and then slowly cultivate the Chinese market. All of this needs to be done step by step.” Ron said, “I am convinced that the Chinese market is important for The demand for high-end products will increase, and the quality of linen yarn in the Chinese market will continue to improve, and we are happy to participate in it. ”
Maintain quality advantage
Try to control costs
Although the flax yarn produced by Italian LINIFICIO company does not have an advantage in terms of price, its quality, innovation and environmental protection are indeed worth learning by domestic enterprises.
Ron showed reporters pictures of the LINIFICIO production plant, which is located in a small town not far from Milan. Set among the lush woods are rows of neat factories and office buildings. What’s even more amazing is that the factory is surrounded by a river, and the water in the river is crystal clear. Ron told reporters very firmly that Italy has very strict control over environmental pollution and they have very strict measures to ensure that production does not cause damage to the surrounding environment.
Ron believes that their company has many advantages. Located in Italy, very close to the fashion capital Milan, it has a production atmosphere for luxury brands, and these brands have stable demand for high-end yarns. In addition, although their production costs are higher than those of Chinese linen companies, their production costs still have a competitive advantage compared with other European companies. “This is inseparable from our improvements in equipment production and management.”
The advantage Ron mentioned in terms of equipment production is that LINIFICIO produces both linen yarn and complete sets of spinning equipment. At the same time, as a corporate development strategy, the complete sets of flax spinning equipment they produce are not sold out, but are only used by their own companies.
“Our equipment is very advanced. There used to be another manufacturer of linen spinning equipment in Europe, Mackay Company, but then they closed down. Now we are the only company in Western Europe that produces linen spinning equipment, and we are constantly improving our equipment. manufacturing technology, which is an important factor in keeping our yarns competitive,” said Ron.
In the opinion of many linen professionals, this approach is out of fear of the imitation ability of Chinese companies. When a reporter asked what Italians thought of the imitation ability of Chinese linen companies when entering the Chinese market, Ron politely called China’s imitation ability “learning ability.” He said that the learning ability of Chinese enterprises is very powerful. This ability helps their growth, but it also brings them into the whirlpool of price competition. He believes that price competition is only the initial stage of competition, and quality is the most important thing.
Italian LINIFICIO company introduces high-end and even luxury linen yarn to China. While expanding its own marketing channels, it will also affect the development ideas of China’s linen industry. We will wait and see how much beneficial impact this introduction will bring in the future.
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