The Chinese textile industry is transforming with growing demands for high-tech and efficient machines on the rise. The Chinese producers are looking for every way to improve their competitiveness, which presents huge potentials for global suppliers.

Some new players target to grasp the Chinese market participated in the ShanghaiTex 2017, gaining more exposure to Chinese customers.

SINO by Terrot: a brand strategically set up for Chinese market

SINO (乐信) is a new brand by Terrot especially designed for the Chinese market. At the show, it displayed the new SL-4 TC sinkerless single jersey machine which is customized for Chinese customers.

As introduced by Mr. Andreas von Bismarck, Managing Partner of Terrot, Terrot has well established business in China for many years. For the machines of SINO by Terrot, they are locally assembled in Terrot’s plant in Fujian, China with the knitting heads imported from Europe.

“The machines are very user friendly and highly productive with low maintenance needed. We believe these features are very good contributions to the Chinese market, so we have high expectations,” he stressed.

“The overall textile machines market in China has shrunk to about only 1/3 when compared to some years ago. However, the potential for high quality machines is increasing on the contrary as more demands for high quality of machines and fabrics has established,” he explained.

He continued to comment that there is still a gap in the quality of fabrics made from Chinese local machines and European machines. “However, when Chinese customers import machines from Europe, they have to pay a lot of duties, so Terrot came up the strategy of assembling machines locally in China,” he said.

According to Mr. Andreas von Bismarck, in the past, when Chinese producers wanted to increase their capacity, they simply bought more machines and hired more people. As the cost has increased and they have to stay competitive, with high quality advanced machines, they can now have better fabrics and higher capacity at the same time from simple operations, he remarked.

He also stressed that the simple operation of machines is very important now, as there is a decrease in skill levels of operators globally.

The new SL-4 TC sinkerless single jersey machine stands for an easy and extremely effective production for leisure fabrics.

It is user-friendly, powerful and at the same time economical. With up to four needle tracks, the SL-4 TC is a flexible knitting machine producing all types of single jersey fabrics.

With its patented sinkerless technology, the SL-4 TC changes the production concept of single jersey fabrics and offers several advantages:

• Higher fabric quality without fabric defects based on correct handling (no vertical lines, neither fabric peeling nor elastane miss-plating defects).
• Significant reduction of cleaning and maintenance operations on the knitting head.
• Lower operating costs and increased productivity.

The machine features completely new designed knitting head and digital control panel, and operates in anticlockwise direction.

German-based Terrot manufactures electronic and mechanic controlled circular knitting machines. More innovation, top quality, high efficiency and performance are always in the foreground at the development and the engineering of its machines.

“When other demands from customers come up, SINO by Terrot will definitely investigate and consider to add new product lines,” he concluded.

88Spares.com: the “amazon” of textile machine spare parts

88Spares.com is a new startup providing a multi-vendor B2B e-marketplace for textile machine spare parts and consumables transactions. The platform cuts out the traditional middlemen role, aiming to simplify and streamline the supply chain and procurement process.

As introduced, everything from sales and marketing to payments and shipping are all in one place.

“Buyers get the lowest possible prices and an overall quicker purchasing process. Vendors can sell more parts and products faster, without getting hit with the usual hassles and increased prices that industry middlemen normally bring to the table,” said Mr. Hartmut Molzahn, CEO and Co-Founder.

“The sales model in this industry has not evolved within the last century - most large companies and manufacturers still use agents, local distributors, and traders to close their sales,” he explained.

“In addition, machine manufacturers do not produce their own spare parts. They enlist suppliers who produce the spare parts for them with their own branding on the parts,” Ms. Rosari Soendjoto, Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder remarked. “Businesses today typically don’t have direct access to spare parts manufacturers.”

The headquarter office of 88Spares.com is located in Singapore, and the company has office in Jakarta, Indonesia. The platform was launched in Indonesia in April 2017.

For the time being, the company will just serve the Asian market which is the driving force of textile industry. It strategically used the ShanghaiTex to launch its platform in the big Chinese market.

Ms. Rosari Soendjoto remarked that, one of the main aims of 88Spares.com is make contribution to the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative launched by the Chinese government.

For spare parts manufacturer, the profits will be increased by 10-50% by removing the 3 layers of intermediaries (machine manufacturer, regional agent, local distributor) according to the estimation by 88Spares.com.

Meanwhile, the sourcing process can be shortened with higher price transparency and comparability for customers.

“In simpler words, we provide a revolutionary way to sell and source manufacturing industrial needs,” Mr. Hartmut Molzahn concluded.