The customer puts on the hat. Two small fans, attached on both sides of the visor, start blowing air on his face while the merchant records a video with his phone. Minutes later, the footage appears on TikTok accompanied by comments from European users asking where to buy that strange Chinese invention. This scene is repeated these days at dozens of stalls in the gigantic market of Yiwu, the city in eastern China that has become the largest factory of small objects on the planet and once again demonstrates one of its great virtues: detecting a global need before almost anyone else and turning it into millions of ready-to-ship products.
While Europe is going through one of the most intense heatwaves in its recent history, the world's largest bazaar is experiencing another peak season. The Yiwu Market is an immense commercial labyrinth of over 75,000 stalls, where buyers from all over the world walk kilometers of aisles looking for any imaginable item. The stars of these days are hats with built-in fans, pocket electric fans, cooling blankets, sun protection sleeves, and small portable air conditioning devices mainly destined for the European market.
Some videos of these products have gone viral on TikTok. One of the most popular shows precisely a hat equipped with two small rechargeable fans that cool the head and face. Behind this success is a factory in Yiwu.
Jiang Yongtao, head of Senwai Hat Industry, explains that the demand from Europe has been steadily growing over the past two years and has skyrocketed this summer.
Their main clients are Amazon sellers, as well as European distributors who had already placed orders months in advance anticipating another extreme summer. The hats, priced between 15 and 50 euros depending on the model, are usually sold alongside small portable fans and sun protection accessories.
Yiwu has been perfecting this ability for decades to turn any passing trend into a commercial opportunity. Around 600,000 containers leave here each year, and many economists consider this city a true barometer of global trade.
This summer, that barometer indicates extreme heat in Europe. And the big winner is not only the small accessory manufacturers but also the Chinese giants of air conditioning. While for decades much of Western Europe considered this appliance an expendable luxury, the successive heatwaves are rapidly changing that perception.
According to the International Energy Agency, barely one in five European households has air conditioning, a figure much lower than that of the United States or Asia. But the temperatures recorded this year have disrupted that balance.
Much of the continent is experiencing days with temperatures above 40 degrees. Germany reached historic highs exceeding 41 degrees; Spain, Italy, and the Balkans activated extreme heat alerts; and France recorded around a thousand heat-related deaths, mainly among the elderly population. Hospitals, power grids, and infrastructure have felt the pressure of a phenomenon that scientists have been linking to climate change for years.
The immediate consequence is felt thousands of kilometers away, in the production chains of southern China. The Midea plant in Guangdong is working at full capacity to manufacture its PortaSplit model, a portable air conditioner specifically designed for European homes. Its sales have doubled this year to reach around 200,000 units. European social media is filled with images of consumers traveling hundreds of kilometers to find one available after selling out in numerous stores.
Chinese manufacturer TCL Electronics explained to the local newspaper Global Times on Wednesday that sales of their air conditioning units had increased by 300% in France and 100% in Spain. "To meet the urgent cooling demand, TCL is considering direct trailer shipments to Europe and chartered air freight for some orders. The company has also reduced the production cycles from the usual 30 to 40 days to 10 days to alleviate the shortage in the retail sector," the media reported.
AliExpress data shows that portable air conditioning units sold out in several countries, with buyers in the UK leading the way, followed by France and Germany. Ice machine sales in the UK multiplied by ten while fan sales increased by 94% weekly in Spain.
Another company, Gree Electric Appliances, states that their sales in France, Italy, and Spain grew by over 40% during the first half of the year. Hisense, Dreame, and other Chinese manufacturers have also significantly increased shipments. The portable P-Wind model from Dreame, marketed in Europe for around 400 euros, has sold over a thousand units per week since its launch at the end of May, and the first batch is almost sold out.
China already accounts for around 40% of all global air conditioning exports and sold these units abroad for nearly $28 billion in 2025. Just between January and June of this year, Chinese exports of air conditioners to the European Union reached $3.76 billion, a 43.2% increase from a year earlier. Sales to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands even doubled, while Spain and Germany also saw double-digit growth.
Meanwhile, in Yiwu, where global trends tend to be anticipated before anywhere else, traders view the European summer as a new commercial season almost as important as Christmas. Among hats with fans, small air conditioners, and cooling devices continuously heading westward, the gigantic Chinese bazaar presents an image that is hard to ignore: while Europe learns to cope with unfamiliar heat, many of the solutions to endure it still bear the same label: "Made in China".