Xingcheng uses e-commerce to boost swimwear sales

Xingcheng, a remote coastal city with a population of 500,000 in the Bohai Bay Area, has become China's largest swimsuit production and e-commerce sales platform in the past three years. Last year, it delivered more than 200 million bathing suits to global customers, generating a revenue of 15 billion yuan ($2.24 billion), according to Li Haifeng, president of Xingcheng Swimwear Industry Association.

"It took us three decades to reach the sales target of 5 billion yuan. But via e-commerce, we tripled that figure in three years," Li explained. "Nearly 10 billion yuan of last year's output is from online platforms. In fact, we contributed 80 percent of China's online swimsuit sales and 25 percent of the global swimwear market."

Xingcheng is located 400 kilometers northeast of Beijing. The past decade saw the city transform from a fishing village into the nation's top swimsuit production base.