1. Strong Foundation: Comprehensive Agglomeration Builds a Complete Industrial Ecosystem
The custom furniture industry in Bazhou originated in the 1980s with ironwork processing in Shengfang Town. Leveraging its strategic logistics advantages near Beijing and Tianjin, the industry gradually expanded through collaborative growth, forming an industrial layout centered on Shengfang that radiates across the entire region. Today, over 4,200 furniture and related upstream and downstream enterprises are concentrated in the city, employing more than 50,000 people. The annual output reaches 100 million units (sets) of furniture, covering eight major categories-including office, residential, outdoor, and upholstered-comprising over 4,000 varieties. Custom furniture accounts for as much as 70% of the domestic market share. In 2025, the cluster's revenue surpassed 53.477 billion yuan, maintaining steady growth with annual tax contributions exceeding 550 million yuan, making it a cornerstone and core growth engine for Bazhou's economy.
The cluster's greatest strength lies in its fully integrated supply chain with no weak links. From raw materials such as steel tubes, panels, glass, and hardware components to processing stages including laser cutting, pipe bending, spraying, and upholstery, and further extending to design, testing, logistics, packaging, and e-commerce sales-all upstream and downstream processes are locally self-sustained, with procurement radius kept within 30 kilometers. All parts required for a custom dining chair can be assembled within half a day, significantly reducing production costs and delivery cycles. Over 5,300 furniture trademarks are registered in the region, supported by more than 10,000 patents. It has fostered leading specialized and innovative enterprises such as Newlaike, whose customized chair manufacturing capacity ranks first in northern China, earning the industry nickname "Champion in Chair Manufacturing.
II. Intelligent Transformation: Shared Platform Solves Development Bottlenecks for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
In the past, furniture production in Baizhou was mainly carried out by small and micro enterprises, which had shortcomings such as outdated equipment, high testing costs, and weak R&D capabilities. In recent years, the local government has innovatively implemented the "shared intelligent" model, leveraging the public service platform to drive the digital upgrade of the entire industry. A high-standard quality inspection and testing center for customized furniture in Hebei Province has been established, equipped with a complete set of testing equipment including mechanical durability, environmental VOC, and stability tests. Small and medium-sized enterprises no longer need to build their own laboratories and can obtain international-recognized quality inspection reports at their doorstep, significantly reducing the threshold for export certification.
Leading enterprises have taken the lead in completing the intelligent transformation of production lines, with widespread use of laser cutting machines, fully automatic bending equipment, and AI design systems. The processing accuracy can reach the micrometer level. Customers only need to provide a floor plan sketch and style requirements, and the factory can quickly produce drawings and schedules through digital modeling, enabling rapid delivery of small-batch personalized customization orders. In the workshops of leading enterprises such as Nu Leike, automated production lines have replaced traditional manual polishing, and one production line can simultaneously handle dozens of different style customization orders. The flexible production capacity has significantly improved, with an average of over 300 new products launched annually per factory, and innovative products such as multi-functional leisure chairs and cat scratch custom dining chairs have won multiple patents.
At the same time, the local government has built shared live-streaming bases, shared mold workshops, and shared warehousing and logistics centers. Small and medium-sized enterprises share high-end equipment and e-commerce operation teams, avoiding duplicate investment. The unified digital management system has enabled the entire cluster to shift from "dispersed processing" to "collaborative intelligent manufacturing", increasing production efficiency by more than 30%, significantly reducing product defect rates, and completely getting rid of the label of low-end outsourcing.
III. Two-way Market Expansion: Exhibition and E-commerce Dual Drive to Connect Global Channels
The Shengfang International Furniture Expo is the core window for the cluster to expand nationwide and connect with the world. Since its establishment in 2007, it has held 33 sessions, with an exhibition area of 500,000 square meters. Each session attracts 1,800+ participating enterprises and over 100,000 professional buyers from home and abroad. The expo specially sets up a customization service zone and a foreign trade negotiation area, inviting hundreds of overseas buyers for on-site connections. In each session, nearly 100 foreign trade deals and hundreds of cooperation intentions can be signed. In addition, the government organizes enterprises to participate in the Guangzhou Home Expo, the German Cologne Exhibition, and the Malaysian International Furniture Exhibition. This collectively promotes the "Shengfang Customized Furniture" regional public brand.
Simultaneous efforts in domestic and foreign trade have enabled the export market to cover more than 130 countries and regions including the United States, the European Union, Russia, and Southeast Asia. Furniture exports account for over 76% of the city's total foreign trade volume. In the first quarter of 2026, the value of furniture imports and exports exceeded 1 billion yuan, with a stable growth trend. In the domestic market, relying on the radiation of Beijing and Tianjin to cover the entire country, the online layout includes platforms such as Douyin, Alibaba International Station, and JD. Live-streaming sales have become a new growth point for customized orders. The 3,000-square-meter professional live-streaming base produces a large amount of personalized furniture live-streaming content daily, and the proportion of online customized orders has been increasing year by year. In 2025, the collective trademark "Shengfang Furniture" was officially launched, promoting the industry to transform from low-price volume production to brand premium pricing, and significantly increasing the profit margin of high-end customized orders.
IV. Future Blueprint: Anchor on High-endization to Build a World-Class Custom Furniture Base
Standing at the new node of industrial upgrading, Baoding has formulated a clear development plan by focusing on strengthening, extending and upgrading the industrial chain. On one hand, it continuously expands the shared intelligent manufacturing park and introduces high-end materials, environmentally friendly spraying, and smart home accessories projects to fill the gaps in high-end fabrics and intelligent hardware; on the other hand, it deepens the construction of the rapid protection center for intellectual property rights to protect original custom designs and prevent homogenized low-price competition. At the same time, efforts are intensified in talent attraction and cultivation, connecting with design colleges in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and introducing talents in home design, cross-border operations, and intelligent manufacturing technology to lay a solid foundation for innovation.
In the long run, the cluster's goal is to weaken low-end production capacity, focus on high-end integrated customization, intelligent functional furniture, and outdoor overall support, and continuously expand the global market share of custom furniture. Leveraging the policy benefits of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Free Trade Zone and the Cross-Border E-commerce Pilot Zone, it will improve the overseas warehouse layout to ensure that Baoding's custom furniture can firmly establish a foothold in the global mid-to-high-end home furnishing market.
Over the past 40 years, one after another steel pipes and one after another sheets have formed the pillar industries that have enriched the people and strengthened the city of Baoding. From handmade ironwork to intelligent customization, from local street vending to sales all over the world, the characteristic custom furniture cluster in Baoding has used the power of clustering, innovation wisdom, and openness to write a vivid answer to the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing in northern county areas. In the future, it will surely steadily move towards a world-class characteristic furniture cluster.
