As more and more people take up outdoor activities such as hiking, mountaineering, rock climbing, skiing, and exploration, “trekking” across the Tianshan Mountains has become a healthy and fashionable pursuit. However, the outdoor gear market is uneven in quality, with some products lacking even national standards, making trekking fraught with danger and leaving participants feeling uneasy.
Outdoor gear stores emerge following the trend
Outdoor travel is both healthy and fashionable, which is why it is attracting more and more enthusiasts. Jin Yingjie, head of the outdoor department at the Xinjiang Mountaineering Association, said that the outdoor travel craze continues to surge year after year.
With over 180 popular outdoor sports routes including vast deserts, grasslands, and canyons, Xinjiang has become one of the main destinations for outdoor enthusiasts to hike, travel, and explore.
It is estimated that there are currently over 300,000 outdoor sports enthusiasts in Xinjiang, and just through the local outdoor website Little Sheep Legion, over 60,000 people participate in outdoor activities each year.
Outdoor gear stores in Xinjiang have emerged following the trend. As early as 1997, the first outdoor gear store appeared in Xinjiang, and since 2002, the number of such stores has been on the rise. By 2011, there were more than 170 companies and individual businesses registered with the Urumqi Administration for Industry and Commerce that specialize in outdoor gear, including over 60 individual businesses. Industry insiders estimate that there are at least 200 outdoor gear stores in Xinjiang.
Reporters found in their investigation that nowadays, outdoor gear stores can be seen in major shopping malls in Xinjiang’s main cities as well as in prefecture and county-level cities, and sales models such as chain stores, franchises, and online shopping are also developing rapidly.
Hard to distinguish good outdoor gear from bad
With the rise of outdoor sports, the buying and selling of outdoor gear has become increasingly prosperous, but most consumers know little about product quality.
Hiker “Colorful Butterfly” was picking out a windbreaker at an outdoor gear store on Renmin Road in Urumqi. She planned to go on a “trek” over the weekend. Having visited several similarly sized outdoor stores, she noticed that the clothes looked similar on the outside, but prices could vary by hundreds of yuan. She couldn’t judge the quality or performance—let alone which ones were windproof or waterproof—and could only decide whether to buy based on price, feel, and the seller’s description. Telling knockoffs from genuine products was even harder for her.
“So far, there haven’t been any incidents in Xinjiang caused by faulty equipment, but that doesn’t mean no one is worried. I’ve been a hiker for nearly 20 years, and in Urumqi, only two or three outdoor gear stores sell real products—the rest are fake. The market is very chaotic,” said veteran hiker Wang Xinyi, expressing his frustration with the current state of the outdoor gear market.
“People who love outdoor sports may go out for just a day or two, or often for a week or longer. If the equipment isn’t up to standard, it can be really dangerous,” said Wang Xinyi’s wife, who has also been hiking for ten years. She said that during weekend hikes, they often encounter hikers with subpar gear—either shoes that aren’t breathable, leaving feet sweaty and pale after just half a day, or sleeping bags that don’t keep warm, making it impossible to sleep through the night.
Reporters found during their visits to the Urumqi market that although there is a wide variety of outdoor sportswear for sale, there is little information available about the functionality of the products. Some products even have less detailed labeling than regular clothing, with descriptions only in foreign languages like English or Korean and no Chinese. Prices also vary widely.
Outdoor gear needs to “get stronger”
Outdoor travel often comes with risks. In recent years, reports of hikers being trapped or killed are not uncommon, and Xinjiang is no exception when it comes to exploration mishaps. It’s not hard to imagine that using substandard gear only adds to the dangers of outdoor sports.
Wang Xinyi said that outdoor activities involve high levels of movement and sweating, occasional exposure to wind, snow, rain, and fog, and frequent trekking through mountains and rivers. This requires outdoor clothing to have good breathability, ventilation, windproofing, waterproofing, and warmth retention, and ideally to be lightweight, stretch-resistant, tear-resistant, stain-resistant, antibacterial, and odor-resistant. He believes that given the nature of outdoor sports, the quality standards for gear—including clothing, shoes, and socks—should be even stricter.
But the reality is quite different. Lei Yongkang, deputy head of the Regulations Division at the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Fiber Inspection Bureau, said that China has not yet issued national standards specifically for outdoor sportswear. However, there are two types of standards for textile quality: one is a voluntary standard, also known as a recommended standard, which is not mandatory, and any organization has the right to decide whether to adopt it. Violating such standards does not result in economic or legal liability. The other is a national mandatory standard, which must be implemented once issued. Otherwise, organizations or individuals causing serious consequences or major losses will face economic penalties or legal responsibility.
Lei Yongkang said that businesses decide what materials, dyes, or styles of clothing to use on their own. We only inspect whether they follow the standards they claim to adopt. For example, for a piece of clothing, we check if it contains excessive formaldehyde, has any unusual odors, and if its colorfastness and pH value meet national requirements—but we can’t control whether the clothing is made of cotton or synthetic fibers.
According to statistics from the Outdoor Products Branch of the China Textile Commerce Association, in 2011, China’s outdoor products industry had shipment and retail sales of 5.43 billion yuan and 10.76 billion yuan respectively, with year-on-year growth rates of 69.16% and 50.91%. But at the same time, regions such as Shandong and Henan have repeatedly reported a lack of standards in the outdoor gear market, with many manufacturers mixing genuine and fake products.
To “eliminate risks” in outdoor sports, safe and reliable outdoor gear is one of the prerequisites. Some outdoor product operators and consumers interviewed said that as the outdoor gear market matures, there should be specific standards for outdoor products, and relevant industry standards also urgently need improvement. The state should quickly establish industry standards to prevent counterfeit and shoddy products from flooding the market, regulate business sales practices, and make it easier for consumers to seek redress.
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