Guangzhou building customisation city
Chinese media have reported that Guangzhou is to build a “customisation city” after local government issued a Notice on measures to deepen the enabling and transformation of the industrial internet to upgrade the five traditional industrial clusters on December 1.
The five industrial clusters are textiles and garments, beauty and cosmetics, luggage and leathergoods, jewellery, and food and beverages.
Alongside building a “consumer experience centre”, the city will encourage brands to set up shop in and around the centre, as well as establish leather, clothing and cosmetics “consumer experience halls”, among other cluster themes. The intention is to create a bespoke consumer experience space through merging both online and offline interactions and capabilities.
Guangzhou will “comprehensively” employ 5G internet, 4K and 8K display, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), “human-computer interaction” and “other technologies” to achieve its aims.
Speaking in late November at an online event called Safety Footwear Revolution Week, chief executive of footwear technology provider Desma, Christian Decker, commented on the rising demand for customisation. While Mr Decker suggested that consumers may not be willing to pay more for locally or sustainably made shoes, he said that they may be persuaded to spend more on shoes which suit their precise requirements.
“This would maybe add 10% to the total production cost,” Mr Decker explained, “but in return manufacturers would see an increase of between 20% and 60%, depending on the kind of customisation they can offer.”
It is estimated that by 2022, Guangzhou will have created an experience centre, plus five industrial internet platforms and “digital transformation solutions”, 100 digital transformation benchmark companies and persuaded 10,000 companies to join the cloud-based platforms, in addition to having trained 100,000 individuals in digital transformation.
