Masks, the hard currency during the epidemic, have become a common commodity on the streets as the domestic epidemic gradually comes to an end.
The price of masks has also plummeted. Now on Taobao, the retail price of disposable protective masks can be as low as 0.39 yuan each, and shipping is free.
This retail price is lower than the wholesale price of some mask factories. Nowadays, one ton of qualified melt-blown cloth has been sold for 350,000 yuan, and one ton of melt-blown cloth can produce 1 million disposable masks. The cost of melt-blown cloth alone is 0.35 yuan.
The price of non-woven fabrics is currently about 50,000 yuan per ton. A mask has two layers of non-woven fabrics, so one ton of non-woven fabrics can only produce 500,000 masks. Equivalent to a disposable mask, the cost of non-woven fabric is 0.1 yuan.
A mask, just three layers of cloth, costs 0.45 yuan. If you add in the cost of ear hangings, beading, and labor, a mask selling for 0.35 yuan is definitely losing money.
If it’s not a loss of money, it’s because the melt-blown cloth used is substandard and the garbage melt-blown cloth produced by a small workshop is used, which costs 200,000 tons per ton. This kind of melt-blown cloth has no filtering effect. There is no difference between the mask produced and whether it is worn or not.
If you use qualified meltblown cloth, you will definitely lose money. Some people may ask, why sell it even if you lose money? It is easy to understand, clear inventory and withdraw funds.
So, producing masks is no longer a profitable business. The mask machine is no longer a money printing machine. Domestic 50,000 mask factories are now in operation, with a daily output of 200 million masks, forcing some small mask factories to go bankrupt.
一
Recently, there are more and more news on the Internet about the bankruptcy of mask factories and the unsaleable masks.
In Anqing City, Anhui Province, a large mask factory closed down during the May Day holiday. A video was also widely circulated on Weibo. Box after box of masks were piled up in the yard. They could not be sold and were opened and moved away by staff.
There is a serious surplus of disposable masks in the country, and in many counties and rural areas, people have begun not to wear masks. At present, people who mainly wear masks in China are in some big cities, and the use of masks in the country has dropped sharply.
Although masks are consumables and should be thrown away after use, the domestic production of masks is too large, and the supply far exceeds demand. There is a seller’s market for masks, which has become a buyer’s market.
In the domestic offline mask market, the competition is about brand and price. Consumers have many choices and pay more attention to brand and quality. Copycat mask factories and small and medium-sized mask factories have lost their market offline, while masks from big brands such as BYD are in short supply in the offline market.
Online stores selling masks are already a red ocean. The lowest retail price on Taobao has reached below 0.5 yuan, breaking through the cost price of many mask manufacturers.
There is no sales offline, and you will lose money if you sell online. Even if they lose money, there are still manufacturers selling online and clearing inventory to collect funds. If you don’t sell online, you will have to wait for death. Selling at a loss can also reduce losses.
The market for disposable masks is really cruel right now, and everyone is clearing their inventory at a loss. Many factories will go bankrupt after selling out their inventory.
As time goes by, more and more mask factories will go bankrupt and close down. Many bosses had to sell mask machines in tears.
There is already a boss who sold the mask machine that he had snatched for more than 1 million yuan for 200,000 yuan at a low price. These bosses know very well that if they don’t get rid of it now, the mask machine will be sold as scrap metal in a month’s time.
The disposable mask market has collapsed in China.
Two
Disposable masks cannot be sold in China. Now that the overseas epidemic is getting more and more serious, masks are urgently needed. Isn’t exporting overseas a way to save lives?
Indeed, let’s look at a set of data first. From March 1 to April 30, China exported a total of 27.8 billion masks. With an average of 460 million masks exported every day, many people will be shocked.
This is because the customs was relatively loose on the export of masks before, and many unqualified and substandard products were allowed to go out. Many small and medium-sized mask factories have made a profit by taking advantage of this wave of loose policies.
However, soon, the customs closed the gap. On April 10, the General Administration of Customs issued Announcement No. 53, which requires commodity inspection of mask exports.
This is the so-called statutory inspection, referred to as legal inspection. This means that exporters must apply for inspection. If the inspection passes, they can ship; if the inspection fails, the masks will be withheld and fines may be imposed.
In the past, masks could be exported overseas through counterfeiting, false concealment, hiding and other means, and masks produced by some small mask factories, unqualified mask factories, and unqualified mask factories. Now, the customs’ new policy has pressed the pause button.
Prior to this, the Ministry of Commerce and the Customs also issued an announcement that masks must obtain a medical device product registration certificate when exporting. Masks must not only meet the quality standards of the importing country, but also obtain domestic qualifications.
This is undoubtedly a fatal blow to domestic primary mask manufacturers., you can’t starve to death, and you can’t make a lot of money. It can only be equivalent to working for others. Nowadays, there are too many mask factories that can do OEM work, and the number of masks that can be directly exported is limited.
So, making whiteboard masks is not that easy. A mask factory owner in Longgang, Shenzhen, who worked on eight fully automatic KN95 mask production lines, also lamented online that the whiteboard was not available. Moreover, he was also deceived when applying for the certificate. He could not find it on the official website, so he could only make OEM certificates for others.
If you make masks now, if you make disposable flat masks, you will definitely lose money. Those who make KN95 masks can make a small profit if they are lucky. Most people will be good if they can recover the cost, but many people will lose money.
The popularity of masks has passed, and the mask industry is no longer an industry full of gold. When exporting masks, you can see the money, but you can’t make it.
五
Let me tell you another story. It is a true story reported in the news recently.
In the Development Zone of Pingdu City, Qingdao, Shandong Province, a boss invested 5 million yuan and registered a mask factory on April 2.
The outside of the mask factory looks like the photo below. From the outside, you can’t tell it is a mask factory at all. This is the actual situation of most mask factories. There are also many small workshops. The facades may not even look as good as the environment in the photos.
This is not an ordinary disposable flat mask. The boss is taking the KN95 three-dimensional mask route. They were making masks for civilian use, so they did not apply for a medical device certificate. Therefore, we can only produce whiteboard masks and OEM them for others, and cannot export them ourselves.
The tragedy is that after three days of working on the equipment purchased by the boss, more than a dozen machines were broken and could not work. Only a few samples were produced and the machine had to be shut down.
The boss said frankly: If you want to do it, we really can’t do it, and we really can’t do it anymore; if we don’t do it, we have invested more than 5 million.
It has been quite difficult for this boss to reach this point, and there will be greater challenges waiting for him later.
Where can I find someone to repair the machine smoothly? Now that we can produce masks, who will we supply them to? You have already invested more than 5 million yuan. How about investing more money to make sterile medical masks? Do I need to apply for the medical device certificate again? Should we obtain both CE certification and FDA certification?
The subsequent investment is a bottomless pit, and I don’t know how much more money I will spend.
Finally, let me sum it up in the words of this boss: the process of buying equipment and raw materials is full of pitfalls! </p
