Tianxiang's turnover had amounted to 320 million yuan ($46.76 million) as of last year and it reached 370 million yuan in the first half of this year.
"We expect it to keep a growth rate at 40 to 50 percent in the second half," Xu said.
However, six years ago when Xu finished her bachelor's degree in Singapore, she was given sales work by her father, founder of Shanghai Honest Fashion Co Ltd, a clothing company specialized in producing clothing for middle- and old-aged women.
Xu, 21 years old at that time, found that the anti-radiation clothing, which can block the radiation from computers, TVs and microwave ovens, was little recognized in China, while anti-radiation clothing for pregnant women, protecting the growing babies from any radiation was very popular in Singapore.
Her father, who thought the market was very narrow, reluctantly agreed to her suggestion to turn the company gradually from traditional clothing production to high-tech anti-radiation clothing.
And so Tianxiang brand anti-radiation clothing for pregnant women was born. All materials were imported from Japan, as anti-radiation materials were unavailable in China at that time. However, high prices due to the costly imported materials, poor design and the weakness of the material impeded Tianxiang’s sales. It was sold at a price of around 1,500 yuan per piece. Its anti-radiation function decreased after being worn for three months and it was unwashable.
Overcoming the hurdle
To lower the material costs, Xu succeeded in persuading Tianxiang's Japanese material suppliers to transfer part of their production line to China. Lower labor costs benefited both of them and Xu was also able to study their production technology during the processing procedures.
Meanwhile, in order to develop their own anti-radiation cloth, she set up a 30,000-sq m base in Shangdong for anti-radiation fiber production and logistics. Finally, Tianxiang developed its own metal fiber and the nano-silver fiber cloth, greatly cutting the material costs.
"The cost of our self-developed anti-radiation cloth is only one-third of imported cloth", Xu said, Tianxiang is currently being sold at 550 yuan a piece.
"We also solved the problem that the imported anti-radiation cloth was unwashable. Now, Tianxiang supplies materials to over 60 percent of anti-radiation clothing manufacturers in China."
Tianxiang was invited to work out the national standards for anti-radiation clothing.
New sales channels
Due to limited start-up capital, Xu first chose the emerging e-commerce channel instead of traditional sales channels of department stores or direct-selling shops.
"I found the turnover of e-commerce websites, such as eachnet.com was fairly high. I think publicizing Tianxiang on the Internet will be faster than traditional advertising means and cost less", Xu said. Tianxiang has 41,327 e-commerce outlets so far.
And as well, she invited European suit-dress teams to design Tianxiang clothing in accordance with market research results and fashions. Fashionable and colorful Tianxiang soon won customers' recognition.
After opening the market, Xu begun to contact dealers, entering into department stores and establishing direct-selling shops. And two years ago, she began to cooperate with M18 and TVSN, two mail order operators to broaden Tianxiang's sales channels. Tianxiang has become a supplier to 5,017 terminal online dealers and over 10 category direct-selling dealers.
Extending production lines
The product cost of Chinese garment companies rose 15 percent in average in the first half of this year, the labor cost 30 percent, and the material cost 9 percent, according to the China National Garment Association.
Higher costs and marketing expenditure and fiercer competition in the anti-radiation clothing market leaves Tianxiang with thinner margins, Xu said.
In order to offset the pressure of higher materials, the company intended to merge a tinsel supplier and also upgrade its products to reduce costs.
Meanwhile, Tianxiang brand has been extended from pregnant women's clothing, creating new products such as anti-radiation underwears for future fathers, clothing for children and suits for white-collars.
Anti-radiation underwears for future fathers have become a new profit growth point for the company as their monthly turnover grows by more than 20 percent.
Xu and her employees are confident about their business as they believe that all computer users are potential consumers of anti-radiation clothing.
