China's largest wool clothing production base, Puyuan town in Tongxiang, Zhejiang province, is developing its primary industry with internet technologies.

Not far from the permanent site of the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, 800-year-old Puyuan is feeling the influence of a rapidly developing internet sector and trying to apply advanced technologies to their historical wool and textile industries.

By collecting data on factories and products, new platforms are able to further unite Puyuan's clothing companies while facilitating development of the whole industry, claims Xu Huajun, head of the town. A cloud platform named Yunpuyuan was launched several years ago and, through analysis of big data, can deliver accurate and immediate information about market response to a product.

"The industry has benefitted a lot from the internet," said Xu. Transaction volume in Puyuan's woolen clothing industry has reached 40 billion yuan ($6.05 billion) this year, 8 billion using an online platform.

"The core of the fashion industry is creative design," Xu noted. In consideration of the importance of talent, Puyuan is striving to build a platform to locate and recruit creative design professionals from home and abroad.

The "Internet + fashion" concept is typified by Puyuan, a town built to be a model in the fashion industry. Puyuan is now home to a complete industrial chain, Xu said. The town aims to promote itself as an international hub for all aspects of the woolen clothing industry and its related design and tourism sectors.

People shop for woolen clothes in Puyuan town, Tongxiang city, Zhejiang. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]