Q: What is your original intention of establishing ShiningHub?

Chen: I have been in foreign trade of apparel for nearly 20 years, served in a foreign-trade enterprise and then built my own company; therefore, I am actually a handler in the entire supply chain. After 20 years of hard working in foreign trade and company management, I turn to services, not to say that the previous model is not good, but all have reason to live as well as a division of labor. What I have been dreaming is to create a service platform, because to my mind China’s service industry is still a little backward and China is also known as a world manufacturing plant. However, today owing to the improved quality of local talents and rich experience, it is time for the emergence of a service brand in China.

Thanks to 20 years of industry experience, I believe that we can make use of the carrier – Internet – to build the brand “Service in China”. We should not only achieve “Created in China” from “Made in China”, but also to “Service in China”. The service does not involve the whole industry, but a certain field. We could not do anything, and should know what can be done and what cannot be done. What I have been doing is clothing business, thus I just want to build a service platform for foreign trade of apparel.

Q: How to attract talents to ShiningHub?

Chen: There is a very excellent team around me. This team collects talents from the first-class enterprises in the world who were backbones in their former companies. Once coming into contact with ShiningHub, they decided to join in apart from anything else; besides, ShiningHun is a start-up company, thus there might not be considerable salary at the very beginning, but they don’t mind it, just accepting the future of ShiningHub. They recognize ShiningHub’s sense of mission and social responsibility.

Q: How does the platform make profits?

Chen: ShiningHub is not an International company but a mainstream service-oriented company providing third-party services. ShiningHub is a leading third party service provider devoted to apparel and textile international trading industry, offering a one-stop supply chain management service. We rely on the Internet to build a platform as a tool through which buyers and sellers can see the conclusion of their business. This platform is just like a super salesman who could create a lot of business opportunities. Our profits come from the fee charging on the post-services. ShiningHub provides free services as well as value-added services. The former includes online factory sourcing, online inquiry, online order control, and online updated information; the latter one includes merchandising service, factory audit, quality inspection, shipping consolidation, customs clearance and inland transportation service, and payment and financial service. We will charge reasonable service fees for each item, and this is our profit mode.

Q: What do you think is ShiningHub’s core competitiveness?

Chen: At ShiningHub, we are very aware of the pains buyers often encountered in sourcing, inquiring, quality control, lead time control and logistics, etc., and we aim to help them overcome the problems quickly and smoothly with our expertise. ShiningHub is equipped with not only 20-year experience of the industry but also talents in the field of the Internet.

Another point is credibility and integrity. The functions of the platform are firstly to match buyers and sellers to achieve transactions, and secondly to immediately and transparently give out the information of both buyers and sellers on ShiningHub’s website according to their willing once the order is fulfilled. Credibility and integrity is required not only to ShiningHub but also to buyers and sellers. As a third party, presenting the authentic state of companies is the most valuable. During the factory audit, we must check the business license, annual test, tax registration certificate, and then we will provide a basic assessment as well as an introduction of the plant.

For example, there may be 300 persons in the list the factory provides us, but only 200 are counted, then 200 is the final. It is to give customers fair and objective information of plants, including the number of machinery and equipment, social responsibility, etc. Based on the checking, a ShiningHub-version report, in accordance with our own standard, will be presented to the customers. It is customers’ rights to use or not to use it, but as a third party, we guarantee that the report we supply has no problems in terms of credibility and integrity.

In addition, we will also do some basic investigation to the customers such as the credibility; however, we can only make recommendations and reports, not guaranteeing you that the final goods are 100% qualified as well as the data delivery, otherwise, it is ourselves to do the foreign trade. 

Q: When do you expect ShiningHub to make profits?

Chen: ShiningHub will contribute a lot to the industry, textile, apparel, and foreign trade, in terms of social value, greatly reducing the cost of the plant and customers who often fail to reach a deal just because of the price. Many small and medium sized foreign buyers often lost an order owing to sort of cents, and if we can save both some costs while we also make some profits, this is just fine. Once both customers and factories are satisfied, there is no need for us to bother making money, and it will be a naturally thing.

During the interview, representatives of manufacturers and purchasers also give their opinions on ShiningHub. Chen Zhihong, GM of Jiangnsu Hongchun Baili Apparel Co., Ltd., has been engaged in manufacturing for 17 years, and ShiningHub does interest her for the reason that it is free while helpful in the publicity of my brand. The costs of quality inspection of the goods and factory audit are relatively high, but now Mr. Chen comes to do all of them. We have to say that his sense of mission and responsibility will bring him a steady stream of wealth.

Shen Yongho, purchaser representative, runs a business office of a Korean company in Hangzhou with about 20 employees. Every month fixed costs are a must to pay the workers even though there is no good operation performance. With ShiningHub’s service, there is no need to employ so many staff; moreover, money should only be paid when necessary. Benefits are far more than this. His staff could not go around China especially to such areas as Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Xinjiang, but only in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujiang, etc. for sourcing. Now thanks to the Internet, his staff don’t have to run here and there for sourcing, not only saving costs but also improving efficiency.