Tuyou, a major Chinese outdoor gear retailer and wholesaler headquartered in Xiamen, plans to open China’s largest specialized outdoor gear store in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, by the end of this year. The store will cover an area of 10,000 square meters. Zhengzhou is a key central city and an important national comprehensive transportation hub, located about 300 kilometers from the Beijing-Shanghai railway line.
Tuyou currently has 500 retail outlets, including 200 franchise stores and 300 directly operated stores, with a goal to increase that number to 700 by the end of this year. Rather than focusing on sales performance, Huang Chenghui, General Manager of Tuyou, prefers to highlight the company’s 2014 purchasing budget: as high as 1 billion RMB.
Since its establishment six years ago, Tuyou has followed a unique business model: coexisting directly operated and franchised stores, while also providing non-exclusive wholesale to specific types of retailers. Directly operated stores account for 60% of Tuyou’s total revenue; the wholesale business serves around 800 retail customers nationwide, supplying them with products from small and medium-sized brands that do not yet have full coverage across the Chinese market. Most importantly, these small independent retailers are precisely the ones in need of such small-scale wholesale procurement.
The brands Tuyou represents and distributes include Toread, Deuter, Tecnica, Acome, Karrimor, and others. To ensure timely product delivery, Tuyou can ship not only from its warehouse in Xiamen but also from its directly operated stores, which are closer to customers.