Appearances can deceive. In shopping malls, you can see people trying on new outfits. Yet they may not necessarily want to buy the clothes. Some just want to try them on before going home to buy them online.
'I tried this skirt on in the store, made sure it fit, then I logged on to Taobao and searched for the same item. And so I got myself a new dress,' says Lu Dongxuan, who attends Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine.
'I can get huge discounts online. This dress was 400 yuan [HK$491]in the store. I got it for only 198 yuan online,' she adds.
Every day after school, express companies set up little booths outside the residential area of Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Centre, waiting for students to come and pick up goods they've ordered online. During seasonal sales, as many as 10 express companies ply their business there.
And it's not just discounts that matter to students.
'I can buy whatever I like on the internet with just a few clicks of my mouse in the comfort of my own room,' says Lin Tao, a student from Sun Yat-sen University. 'It saves me the trouble of travelling downtown, going from store to store and queuing up to pay.'
