Stressed sales inside a Chinese toy market
Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 10:14 AM
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Beijing, China
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
GUANGZHOU CITY, China –
Zhao Xian Yong sat at his desk, surrounded by a mean-looking team of U.S. Special Forces soldiers and a heavily armed private contractor. A Black Hawk helicopter hovered overhead. "We are all under a lot of pressure," he told me, "it's bound to have an impact on business."
Zhao was a toy trader and the soldiers all models. His store was one of hundreds that line the corridors and alleyways of Yidelu, a warren-like toy wholesale market in China's Guangzhou City. He represents a factory in Donguan, close to the border with Hong Kong, where the model soldiers, each around eight inches tall, are made for a few dollars, but retail for several times that in the West.
Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province in southern China, the country's toy-making hub. Nearly four out of every five of the world's toys are made in China, the majority of them in Guangdong. The province alone exports nearly $12 billion worth of toys a year and 1.5 million workers are employed in its more than 6,000 factories.
While the traders are clearly rattled by the latest product recalls in the United States, many trying to put on a brave face.
‘No need to worry’
Lin Wei Bin, who represents five factories, walked along rows of shelves straining under the weight of radio-controlled cars, boats and planes. "No need to worry," he kept telling me, pointing to a quality control sticker on some of the boxes. He admitted, though, that quality varies enormously. "The stuff for export is generally better," he told me.
While nearby a woman selling racing games pointed to the stacks of boxes in her window. "Most break easily," she told me. "Cheap plastic, maybe one or two days." Thinking I was a buyer, her aim was to entice me to buy a more robust-looking game made out of metal that sat high on her stack. She insisted it would last. "How many containers you want?"
The main part of Yidelu covers five floors of a scrappy, sprawling building containing every conceivable type of toy: Dolls, teddy-bears, model cars, games – you name it, they have it, some branded (and possibly fake), others not.
We'd visited to gauge the mood of the traders at a time when the China Toy Association was claiming that thousands of workers were losing their jobs, and criticizing the media (i.e. us) for exaggerating the problem.
"The overwhelming majority are safe," insisted an uneasy man from the association. He said it was not just a question of export controls, but also import controls. In other words, it's your fault, too.
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| NBC News/ Adrienne Mong |
| On the move in China's toy capital. |
In the streets outside the main market, boxes piled on hand and bicycle-pulled trolleys leaned precariously as they were transported through narrow, crowded streets.
We looked for American buyers, but none were to be found. In one store, Bangladeshi buyers placed an order for remote-controlled helicopters, and a team from Venezuela negotiated for model cars. Were the Venezuelans happy with the quality of their toys, I asked. They were a little embarrassed. "Well, I think so, yes," one of the buyers said, laughing.
Wild West atmosphere
China, and Guangdong in particular, really is the workshop of the world.
The wholesale traders represent factories, but they don't make the products. They know that not only does quality vary enormously, but you get what you pay for. There really is a Wild West atmosphere and attitude here, and a short visit to this bustling district underlines how difficult it is for Beijing to enforce standards and rules – freshly beefed-up in the wake of the latest scandals.
Mattel is credited with having some of the strictest oversight in the business. They found the problem toys, albeit belatedly. How many others are getting to the world's markets, imported by companies with less rigorous oversight? A visit to the Yidelu market is hardly encouraging.
