Why does sea cucumber buyer Guo Tianzhu take the risk of buying up large quantities?

Every year during sea cucumber harvest season, he appears in these waters. New to the sea cucumber business, in just two months he gathered together over a hundred aquatic product dealers from across the country. Knowing full well the market is sluggish, he still keeps buying in large quantities. What others see as risk, he sees as opportunity. See how Guo Tianzhu of Hongmei Town, Fujian Province, quickly spread a nationwide sales network and, in 5 years, opened up the chain of farming, buying, processing and sales, carving out a place for himself in the sea cucumber market.

This is Xiapu County, Fujian Province. At first light, the fishermen arrive early at the dock, ready and waiting, about to follow Guo Tianzhu to buy a precious seafood product. Our reporter goes along too.

March is sea cucumber harvest season in Fujian Province. At this time, these waters are always bustling, and sea cucumber farmers are all kept incredibly busy.

For more than five years, every year in this season, Guo Tianzhu has always appeared on the water, busier even than the sea cucumber farmers. As soon as he arrives at the farm, Guo Tianzhu and the fishermen get to work.

Guo Tianzhu: Pick out the smaller ones like these separately.

Reporter: You still have to sort them?

Guo Tianzhu: Yes, they all have to be picked out, the small ones all have to be picked out.

Reporter: How do you usually sort sea cucumbers?

Guo Tianzhu: Look at the length of the spines, and the size, they all have to be separated, and also whether there's a lot of water in the belly. Today the water content is acceptable. Size has to be sorted too, anything under one liang has to be picked out. This raft has over a hundred thousand jin, today I'm only buying 20,000 jin from him as a test. If it's good, next time I'll buy up this whole area.

In Guo Tianzhu's eyes, sea cucumbers that are large, thick-meated and sharp-spined are the ones he buys first.

Guo Tianzhu: The sea cucumber is in very good condition, there's still quite a lot of water inside, but the skin is very thick, the quality is no problem, it's just that the water content is high, but the quality of the sea cucumber is very good. The sea cucumber itself is soft, and when you touch it, if it's stimulated, the spines harden. The underside has lots of feet. If you put it in here, it will slowly, slowly soften. Sea cucumbers also have very high requirements for the farming area's environment. With flowing-water farming, the skin is thick and the meat is firm, and there's definitely no residue exceeding standards in it. This is the kind of sea cucumber we want to buy.

In just one morning, Guo Tianzhu bought over 20,000 jin of sea cucumbers. He had originally ordered only 300,000 jin from the farmers here, but now, after buying on this water for more than half a month, he has already exceeded his planned purchase volume. Seeing Guo Tianzhu buying sea cucumbers, the farmers finally set down the heavy stone in their hearts, because this year's sea cucumber market is not good, and Guo Tianzhu knows it himself.

Guo Tianzhu: I planned to buy around 300,000 jin, but these past two days many friends are anxious to sell. If they're selling, I'll buy another hundred thousand-plus jin.

Reporter: Adding what you farm yourself, haven't you already gone over now?

Guo Tianzhu: Right, I've gone over my plan, now I'm over by more than 100,000 jin.

During the interview, the reporter saw that as soon as the sea cucumbers are all loaded onto the boat, Guo Tianzhu immediately transfers the money to the farmers, never delaying payment. This means that once these sea cucumbers are bought back, Guo Tianzhu has no way out. If he can't sell them, they'll all be stuck in his own hands. The more he buys, the greater the risk. Faced with this, Guo Tianzhu says he has his own plan. Through cautious dealing, in 5 years Guo Tianzhu went from a small aquatic product dealer to rapidly becoming the largest sea cucumber source wholesaler in Fujian Province integrating farming, buying, processing and sales.

Farmer: This boss Guo Tianzhu is the biggest boss around here. The biggest in our Fujian, because the place where you can farm sea cucumbers is right here in our Guanjingyang, the most is farmed here, other places don't have as much, and he buys relatively more too.

Farmer: He comes to buy every year, and the volume he buys is bigger than even the Shandong people. In our Fujian area, when it comes to sea cucumbers, we all count as big players, not small ones. Every year he buys several hundred thousand jin here, and he farms 600,000 jin himself too.

Now, facing a sluggish sales market, others see risk, but Guo Tianzhu says he is playing a big game of chess. So why does he take the risk of buying so many sea cucumbers?

Guo Tianzhu is the eldest of three siblings. After graduating from junior high school, he helped his father, who was in the aquatic product business, find sources of goods. In 1996, Guo Tianzhu often went to Beijing to handle logistics transfer matters. Years of hard work made him very familiar with Beijing's aquatic product market, and gradually he had an idea.

Guo Tianzhu: I felt Beijing's market was good, and I had sources of goods on the outside, so I wanted to open a shop in Beijing and try. At first I just wanted to settle down in Beijing. Just to survive, to get a foothold.

In 2002, Guo Tianzhu set up his own aquatic product sales center in Beijing's aquatic product market. Although the store wasn't big at the time, thanks to his style of always thinking of others, no matter what product he sold, he had more sources of goods than others.

Guo Tianzhu: Back then, as long as you had a source of goods, it wasn't very hard. The source of goods was the key. In those years, as long as you had a good source, you could sell it all.

No one expected that Guo Tianzhu, who just wanted to gain a foothold in Beijing, would gradually carve out a place for himself in this big market.

In 2010, Guo Tianzhu's business was going smoothly, and he had saved up nearly ten million yuan. Then he suddenly took his years of savings and started farming sea cucumbers and abalone in Fujian Province. It was this 10 million yuan investment that brought a huge change to his life.

Guo Tianzhu: At first I thought it was easy money. People said 1 million could earn 500,000, so if I invested 10 million, I could earn 5 million. Isn't that fast? I was just moving too fast.

That year, for ease of management, Guo Tianzhu farmed sea cucumbers and abalone in the same patch of sea. By December 2010, the season for rapid sea cucumber growth was almost over. At this point, the worker helping Guo Tianzhu farm sea cucumbers suddenly said he was quitting.

Guo Tianzhu: The worker ran off halfway through. I asked him why he ran, and he said, how can you farm sea cucumbers in this place? A place for farming abalone can't farm sea cucumbers. How did you think of farming sea cucumbers here?

Other people's sea cucumbers were slowly growing, but Guo Tianzhu's sea cucumbers hadn't grown even one liang. After asking around, he suddenly realized the seriousness of the problem, but the investment in the rafts and hanging cages was too great, and it was too late to make changes.

Three months later, when the sea cucumber season for market arrived, other people's sea cucumbers had grown to around 6 liang, while his sea cucumbers were still just one liang, not changed at all. What on earth had gone wrong?

During the interview, Guo Tianzhu found a different sea cucumber to show the reporter.