Paying buyers abroad to obtain cheaper luxury items: the "Daigou" method

Paying buyers abroad to obtain cheaper luxury items: the "Daigou" method

The Chinese also want to avoid counterfeits, which are more and more often made on their soil.For this, they are ready to entrust substantial sums to a kind of personal shopper who buys products on demand in Europe or the United States.The term that designates this process, "Daigou", means "buy for someone".And it is a system that attracts: 35 % of Chinese luxury amateurs use it according to a survey carried out by Exane BNP Paribas for the Business of Fashion site.

Operation?Students of Chinese origin, living for example in Hong Kong, Europe or North America, offer to buy products from major brands, for a commission, and send all this to customers, as indicated by the siteRefinery29.A practice that always remains less expensive than buying the product on site or on the website of the brands in question."The same brands of milk powder, cosmetics and handbags are much cheaper in Hong Kong, the United States, Japan and South Korea than in China," said Mo Daiqing, a financial analyst, inThe Financial Times.Without forgetting that this avoids buying, without knowing it, high quality counterfeits, which have spread in the country and in the rest of the world.

Payer des acheteurs à l'étranger pour obtenir des articles de luxe moins chers : la méthode

Buy luxury by social networks

Buyers and their customers most often get in touch thanks to word of mouth or on the internet.Social networks play an important role in this contact.The Weibo social network, a sort of Chinese twitter, allows resellers to have an easily accessible showcase.Just browse the tags of major brands - Céline, Hermès, Chanel - to have access to their profiles, on which photos of the items offered are put online taken directly in stores ... Some buyers go so far as to pose with the itemsIn the fitting room.Questioned by Refinery29, one of them says that she has no more difficulty turning her business."For each big brand, there is always a seller with whom I sympathized.Given the amount of products I buy, employees who speak French and Mandarin do not blame me for.»»

They could however blame him for the illegality of this practice.According to the Business of Fashion site, the Chinese government has strengthened its customs checks in 2013: those who are taken from the fact is to be fine of at least 1000 yuan (around 150 euros). En 2014, les mesures ont été renforcées : les colis marqués à « usage personnel»» font désormais l’objet d’une taxe si leur contenu vaut plus de 5000 yuans (environ 730 euros).An air hostess had also been sentenced to eleven years in prison for having sold items bought in South Korea in Duty Free stores, which was a shortfall of 1.1 million yuan (more than160.000 euros) taxes.If his sentence has been reduced to three years in prison, some resellers are taking more and more precautions and go so far as to communicate only by voice messages on instant messaging, for fear of being monitored.However, the case is not likely to stop there: the gains generated by this system are indeed estimated at $ 15 billion (13 billion euros) per year.

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