The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of shutdowns, bankruptcies and also mass unemployment, but a Chinese chair maker has doubled their sales during this unprecedented period.

Manufacturer Xue Dong has been making ergonomic chairs - a term which mainly refers to office and gaming chairs - for nine years. His company, Anji Wanbao Smart Home Technology, located in the county of Anji in East China's Zhejiang Province, a place which is best for its bamboo groves and furniture industry. From this small place, his chairs are exported around the world.

"The COVID-19 pandemic this year hasn't been negative for our company," said Xue. "Our sales volume has doubled compared to last year."

Xue opened two new plants during the pandemic to satisfy the surging demand of his chairs. More than 500 employees work for him day and night. However, this success started from just an 800 square meter plant and a 30-member crew, and it has not been smooth sailing. 

'Why they made it, but I lost.'

In 2011, Xue came to Anji County to help his sister operate a poorly-managed company. At the time, he was running a logistics business in another city in Zhejiang Province which owned 15 trucks. In Xue's words, his life was "pretty OK."

He thought he would stay for just a couple of days, but opportunity knocked. He decided to open an ergonomic chair manufacturing company and gradually moved his work focus out of logistics.

"I barely knew anything [about the chair industry]," Xue told CGTN, adding that he could not get any orders at the time since he was just a new player in the chair market without much knowledge.

"One year into it, I lost several years of earnings from the past, doing logistics, which was nearly four million yuan (about $620,000 in 2011)," said Xue.

Xue's family tried to persuade him to move back to his logistics business and Xue himself was disappointed with the loss too, but he couldn't put his dream down.

"Why could others run a chair business well? Why did I lose?" he said.

Since then, Xue got careful and humble. He said he would rather not look for orders, but made himself a technical manager – pushing himself to make every detail of ergonomic chairs clear. Xue spent half a year clarifying all the technical standards, from the craftsmanship to the hardware's size, and often stopped by bigger companies to learn industry knowledge.

From 2012 to 2016, Xue never lost again. He both sold his chairs on Alibaba-owned Chinese's e-commerce platform Tmall and to overseas corporate buyers, but none of the sales could take his company to another level until he got involved with a cross-border e-commerce platform.

In 2017, Xue started to sell his products on Amazon and Alibaba for global buyers. His company's sales volume roses for the following three consecutive years, even as China-U.S. trade tension has risen.

According to the manufacturer, about 60 percent of his chairs go to the U.S. market, 30 percent hit the European market, and the other 10 percent go to East Asia, etc. Prices range from $169 to $299.

Pandemic pushes sales as demand grows

Xue's gaming and office chairs sales have doubled during the pandemic due to the surging demand, though China's overall production of furniture is lower this year.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to work and play from home, which means people will sit in front of their computers for longer than before. It is estimated that the global gaming chair market will see a 5.23 percent growth in 2020, according to Technavio. And it is expected to grow by $71.3 million during 2020-2024 as the e-sports industry has been hot for years.

Xue said the sales during a pandemic are like on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. He opened up two new plants in April and asked his "brother companies" to help with production to meet the demand.

"From January to June, our production value reached the total value of 2019," said Xue. "This year it is expected to be 100 to 120 percent higher than last year, which is equal to $250 million or more."

Since Anji County has never had any coronavirus cases, Xue's factory was shut down for only 10 days in mid-February during the pandemic. Nevertheless, that was right after Spring Festival, China's biggest national holiday, when millions of migrant workers return home and, this year, couldn't go back due to the COVID-19. Xue faced the prospect of an empty factory.

"Regarding migrant workers returning, I want to thank our county government. They did an excellent job." said Xue, referring that the local government rented chartered buses and high-speed trains to bring workers back from Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan Provinces, which are three major labor-outsourcing provinces in China.

"It just took a few days for them to fill our factories, and we were in dire need of them," added Xue.

China's strict coronavirus containment has made the resumption of manufacturing faster than in many other countries. The whole country's exports have surged since June, and business activities have kept expanding since February.

The company's competitor, Secretlab in Singapore, which also contained the coronavirus relatively well, also saw a "multifold" increase in global orders during the pandemic, according to TODAYonline.

Along his journey, Xue told CGTN the proudest thing he has ever done is that he has promoted his brand to 8th place in the United States and Europe in 2019.

"I will make it to number one in the world," said Xue.

Reporter: Wang Tianyu

Video editors: Liang Si and Wang Tianyu

Videographer: Danzeng Jiancuo and Tao Gaoyang

Executive Producer: Wu Gang