Heading southeast from Jinhua City, past rolling mountains and scattered villages, one encounters clusters of industrial buildings and logistics parks, with contact numbers of business owners boldly spray-painted on the walls. The 5,000-square-meter production facility of vacuum flask manufacturer “Feijian” is located just outside Yongkang’s North Third Ring Road, adjacent to the Suxi River that flows through the city.
Inside Feijian’s workshop, the roar of machinery fills the assembly lines. Rows of uniform robotic arms are installing inner liners into vacuum flasks—with each up-and-down movement, another liner is perfectly fitted. According to the brand manager, this fully automated production line was introduced in 2018 as Zhejiang Province’s first 5G-enabled intelligent manufacturing system. It has not only reduced labor costs but also allows full visibility of order details and production stages through a digital control center. Currently, 80% of Feijian’s production processes are automated.
After a series of assembly line procedures, the vacuum flasks finally enter the quality inspection stage, followed by packaging, warehousing, and shipment to North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Catering to regional characteristics and consumer preferences, Feijian offers over 800 flask types—such as large-capacity bottles for North America, coffee flasks for Europe, and vacuum-insulated cold cups for Southeast Asia.
Today, Feijian generates approximately RMB 800 million in annual revenue, with OEM export business accounting for about 90% of its total sales. Major clients include U.S. companies like Starbucks, with orders received either through distributors or via direct partnerships with large customers.
Among Yongkang’s vacuum flask manufacturers, Haers is the largest. Its H1 2024 financial report shows export revenue of RMB 1.196 billion, compared with domestic revenue of RMB 196 million. Haers’ cups and flasks are sold in more than 80 countries and regions worldwide.
Founded in 1985 as a small vacuum flask factory, Haers began OEM production for international brands in the 1990s and still focuses on manufacturing services today. With R&D and manufacturing bases covering roughly 180,000 square meters in China—including nearly 80 automated production lines and over 5,500 industry-leading production and inspection equipment units—Haers has become a true “vacuum flask tycoon” in China.
Alloy cookware is another representative industry in Yongkang. In the showroom of Mingxin, a kitchenware and cookware enterprise, a wide variety of spatulas and kitchen tools are displayed—most of which break from the traditional image of pots and pans. Instead of plain metallic finishes, products now feature colors and patterns inspired by Disney’s Donald Duck, avocado tones, and orange-red gradients, appealing strongly to urban young consumers.
One corner of the showroom is arranged like a European-style kitchen, showcasing products of Amercook, Mingxin’s in-house kitchenware brand, creating a highly immersive scene. Visitors often exclaim, “It makes you want to start cooking right away,” and “So beautiful—I want to buy them.”
Since its establishment in 1999, Mingxin was primarily engaged in the trading of kitchenware and cookware. After order volumes stabilized, the company leveraged Yongkang’s cost-efficient aluminum supply chain to set up its own factories and enter manufacturing. Today, Mingxin operates three plants in Zhejiang and offers over 5,000 SKUs, most of which support its export business. In 2023, the company’s OEM revenue reached nearly $40 million, mainly from European clients, while its self-owned brand revenue amounted to about $2 million.
Over the past two decades, Yongkang enterprises have grown through OEM exports. However, some leading companies have begun preparing for uncertainties by developing their own brands.
Huang Ziming, Mingxin’s brand manager, told Yibang Power: “The best-selling OEM products are always the same few types. We feel the road is narrowing, flexibility is limited, and we worry about becoming disconnected from the market.”
In 2014, Mingxin acquired the U.S. kitchenware brand Amercook and began operating it in Europe, later expanding to Southeast Asia, Russia, and parts of Central Asia. The brand’s strategy involves appointing mature local distributors as regional agents, who handle branding, warehousing, distribution, and downstream wholesale channels—managing all operations for Amercook in their respective regions.
Since 2023, geopolitical shifts have led many American, European, Japanese, and Korean companies to withdraw from the Russian market, creating opportunities for Chinese firms. Mingxin decided to expand its self-owned brand presence in Russia, primarily by supplying products to B2B channels such as large supermarkets through the platform Mainline. Since receiving its first order in January 2024, Mingxin’s self-owned brand business in Russia has grown rapidly.
However, unlike OEM manufacturing, branding requires quick market feedback and sensitivity to changing trends to continuously improve products according to user preferences. Relying solely on agent feedback is insufficient. Therefore, Mingxin is also expanding C-end sales via local Russian e-commerce platforms and using Amazon to reach customers in Southeast Asia and Europe.
Huang Ziming noted that once a brand gains recognition, the company gains significant initiative. Its role evolves from traditional manufacturer or trader to channel operator, enabling expansion into more categories and business areas.
Similarly, Feijian is promoting its self-owned brand vacuum flasks on Amazon, mainly targeting Southeast Asia. A Feijian representative revealed that the company is setting up a new factory in Thailand, expected to be operational by year-end, to support the expansion of its own brand in the region.
In 2013, Haers launched the French-designed brand SANTECO, and in 2016, it acquired the century-old Swiss brand SIGG. Through Amazon, Haers distributes its self-owned brands across multiple European and American countries. In recent years, SIGG has achieved double-digit sales growth on Amazon and has launched co-branded products with several high-end brands and sports events, earning recognition from various institutions and enhancing Haers’ influence and acceptance in Europe and the U.S.
Wu Zifu, President of Haers, previously told Yibang Power that launching self-owned brands overseas requires significant manpower and time. However, online channels allow for lower-cost consumer-facing brand communication, enabling brands to quickly compete internationally and gain consumer visibility.
Leveraging e-commerce operational experience gained from Amazon, Haers has also opened stores on emerging domestic platforms like Douyin, marketing self-owned brands tailored to the Chinese market. Supported by Tmall and JD.com, these efforts have rapidly reached customers, achieving several-fold transaction growth.
Building brands through online channels is a novel attempt for traditional manufacturers in Yongkang. By quickly gaining consumer feedback and actively responding to market changes, they empower their original manufacturing operations. For instance, in R&D, leading vacuum flask companies like Haers and Feijian are diversifying their development focus toward eco-friendly, fashionable, and smart products—transforming vacuum flasks into social fashion items popular among North American consumers.
However, most Yongkang hardware manufacturers are still in the early stages of developing self-owned brands. For example, Nanlong Group, with annual revenue of around RMB 2 billion from cups and pots, has only been building its overseas brand for about a year, with just over 20 SKUs. Such companies remain cautious about disclosing their branding progress: “We hope to share more after we achieve certain milestones—maybe in six months or a year.”
This caution stems partly from potential conflicts between self-owned brands and existing OEM businesses. Yongkang manufacturers strive to differentiate their brands and target different consumer segments to avoid overlap.
Of course, building a brand also presents challenges for traditional manufacturers. In marketing, for instance, online campaign proposals are often initiated and executed by regional agents, with manufacturers unaware of operational details in some regions.
Huang Ziming stated that entering e-commerce platforms—a shift from B2B to B2C—is among the most difficult steps. Manufacturers lack suitable channels to learn about retail and often face a shortage of talent in e-commerce operations and design. In the hardware industrial cluster, OEM has been the unchanging business model for decades. Venturing into self-owned brands and online channels means “crossing the river by feeling the stones,” with no precedents to follow. Responding to fast-changing market trends creates significant product development pressure for manufacturing-based firms. Inventory requirements for online retail also increase financial pressure. Moreover, brand marketing is a bottomless pit, with sunk costs too large to calculate.
Currently, Yongkang manufacturers are “huddling together for warmth”—sharing information and exploring overseas markets collectively. Huang Ziming emphasized that each brand has a different positioning and niche. Since products often require matching items—such as pots and spatulas paired with insulated containers—brands don’t need to produce everything themselves. They can collaborate with suitable suppliers within the industrial cluster. “This is the advantage of cluster effects and branding: we don’t have to rely entirely on our own production,” Huang said.
In recent years, as Yongkang manufacturers explore online business, e-commerce platforms have also actively engaged with the local hardware industrial cluster. Public reports show that in September 2022, the Yongkang Commerce Bureau met with Douyin and TikTok service teams to discuss setting up a Doujin Yongkang base, “Douyin Good Goods Yongkang,” and cooperation with the Yongkang hardware industrial belt.
Since the second half of 2024, JD Industrial and 1688 have also strengthened their presence in the Yongkang industrial cluster. On September 26, the JD Yongkand Landmark Store was officially launched. JD Industrial will provide Yongkang hardware merchants with services such as big data and logistics, exploring new global business channels together. On October 12, 1688 announced the establishment of a hardware selection center in Yongkang, featuring digital showrooms, product selection halls, and category live-streaming spaces—aiming to build an integrated platform combining supply chain and e-commerce services with local merchants.
Mainline, based in Jinhua, is also involved in supporting Yongkang industrial belt merchants with brand globalization. Formerly known as Crown Tools, a leading manufacturing enterprise in Jinhua, the group transitioned into a platform business in 2017. In 2023, Mainline partnered with Yongkang Hardware City Group to establish Zongyuan Trading Co., leveraging Mainline’s established overseas hardware channels in Russia and five Central Asian countries to provide industrial belt merchants with services covering customer acquisition, transactions, and fulfillment. In early 2024, Mainline hosted a merchant selection event, offering a joint global expansion model featuring brand sharing, channel co-building, and pre-sales collaboration. From January to April 2024, Yongkang’s exports to Russia and five Central Asian countries reached RMB 1.16 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15.3%.
